156 
aside revelation, experience itself teaches us that we are not left in this 
world alone with sensuous perceptions and our own intellectual percep- 
tions, but that there is a spiritual perception which is entirely ignored 
by Dr. Max Muller, and which, after all, is as certain, according to the 
evidence we can produce, as is the evidence of our intellectual perceptions. 
Where is the force of gravity ? where are the theories of Newton ? where 
is the differential calculus, if we are left alone with sensuous perceptions 
and the world ? I fail to perceive why then, if we admit intellectual 
perceptions, which certainly are not sensuous, should we be false to the 
testimony of our own nature, and refuse to admit religious perceptions, of 
which there is as much evidence as of the intellectual perceptions ? I 
heartily thank the lecturer for the paper he has given us on a most in- 
teresting subject, and one which is most admirable, profound, and well 
adapted to the needs of this Institute. (Hear, hear.) 
Mr. Blencowe. — I do not know that I need reply at any length after 
what has been said. I was going to refer to M. Kenoufs “Hibbert 
Lecture , ” and to have suggested to one of the earlier speakers that he 
mentions what he calls the oldest book in the world, a copy of which is 
now in Paris, and which, he says, was written centuries before the Exodus, 
and that that is only a copy ; that the author of that book, Ptahhotep, 
lived in the Fifth Dynasty, and that he did not propound a new religion, 
but was a reformer, bringing back his people to that knowledge of God 
from which they had departed. Mr. Benouf, in that lecture, also quotes 
the testimony of an eminent Frenchman, whose name I forget just now, 
and to whom he refers as of all other persons most competent to speak 
upon such a question ; who says that the earliest doctrine of Egypt was 
one, sole, only God, — a most precise and definite expression, — not Gods, 
but one, only, sole God. This is the oldest testimony I know except that 
of the Bible, and, as the gentleman who last spoke says, both from the 
Zendavesta and those early records of Egypt, we have the sameness of 
doctrine at that period, most clearly established. 
The meeting was then adjourned. 
FURTHER COMMUNICATION RECEIVED. 
The Rev. J. Fisher, D.D., sends the following remarks : — 
This paper was much needed, and, though I highly approve of it, I would 
venture to remark upon a few passages. 
On page 140 we read “ The Zulus have no God and no worship.” But the 
paper corrects itself and adds, “ They know the Great Great One as the author 
of death.” It is sometimes difficult to find out what ideas of God and 
worship the mere savage has. We hold, however, with Cicero, that “ there is 
