3G2 
apprehending a true thing. Just as it has been said that every man has 
been born either a Platonist or an Aristotlean, so am I convinced that there 
is a wide difference in the modes of apprehending spiritual conceptions 
depending on the constitution of the mind. All these are points that deserve 
a vast amount of attention ; but there are other points in connexion with the 
subject of the paper that are especially interesting. One that has been 
touched upon is — How far we should conceive the creation of man as an 
absolutely perfect being in actuality, and how far perfect in possibility 1 I 
cannot help thinking of a perfection which may be like imperfection. The 
Greek language was perfect before Plato, and gave the possibilities of Plato’s 
thoughts, but until Plato’s thoughts came the possibilities of the Greek 
language were not developed ; and then, again, until Paul came, they were 
not fully developed. How for the first speaking man— for I confess that the 
homo alalus is one of the most curious myths w 7 e can find — was gifted with 
the possibility and how far with the actuality of language, is a curious and 
interesting problem. You cannot imagine the first man a baboon ; you see 
in the baboon no possibility without the actuality. And so with regard to the 
first man : there may have been a certain amount of imperfection, but that 
existed along with perfect possibilities, and this may explain a great many 
of the questions raised this evening. It seems to be a pregnant idea in the 
mind of the lecturer that roots may never have been used. If one may judge 
from the inventions of science, it will be found that, to speak analogically, 
the root is not used. In mechanics, the best invention is at first a very com- 
plicated one, and it is only by what is done afterwards that it is worked into 
a simple form. Watts’ first steam-engine was infinitely more complicated 
than the modern steam-engine. If you look at one practical point, the 
arrangement of the valves to regulate the steam, which afford the key to 
the whole matter, you will find that in Watt’s engine these things are 
exceedingly complicated, and the slide valves, which now do all the real 
work, were not invented till long after. And I cannot help thinking 
that there may, in the same way, have been a good deal of complexity in the 
earlier forms of speech, and that in reality the root was not developed until 
later, though it sounds very much like a bull to say so. The curious expe- 
rience of our missionaries among savage tribes with regard to the different 
forms and roots of the native languages, and the manner in which they are 
obtained is interesting. I remember it being said that, in one of the Poly- 
nesian islands, they describe a horse as a “ man-running-pig”; but in order 
to describe a cow they perform a more curious process of philology, for they 
take the words “ bull” and “ cow,” and put them together, and add vahina, 
i.e., lady, with the result that a cow is called “ ebullemacowvahina.” 
Mr. R. Brown, F.S.A. — I had on a former occasion to commence my 
reply by explaining the stand-point from which my paper was written, and 
I must do so again, and the explanation simply is, that it is a paper for any 
one and every one, and not for those only who hold distinctly Christian 
opinions in the same way that we do. (Hear, hear.) This, I think, is an 
