117 
which we are directly conscious, and therefore one of our highest certitudes ; 
and therefore, I hold, it is a great error to say we can be philosophically free 
in one sense and theologically not so in another ; and although some great 
names may be mentioned in support of the proposition, my reply is that 
I do not care whose doctrine it is, it is certainly not the doctrine either 
of reason or of the New Testament. (Applause.) 
Rev. J. Fisher, D.D. — According to the paper, at page 110, we are told that 
“ mind and matter are at the two opposite poles of being ” ; but that the 
author only means that they are objective and subjective sides of the same 
substance ; at any rate, it comes to that in the end. Two pages further on he 
says that Mr. Spencer denies liberty to man, and asserts that moral law must 
fade away out of the earth, and man will need no moral directions. In 
that case, of course, we must have the golden age. 
The Chairman. — This is assumed in his last work. 
Dr. Fisher. — On page 101 Mr. Spencer is quoted as saying, — “ that 
the ego is something more than the aggregate of feelings and 
ideas” is an “illusion,” and in the next sentence he speaks of man as 
subject to “ psychical states ! ” On the next page we find Mr. Spencer 
quoted as speaking on the subject of “psychical changes”; but surely if 
man, the ego, and the psychical states and changes, be the same things, where 
is the subject ? There is none. Mr. Spencer writes thus confusedly because 
he is a monist, using the language of a dualist. Monism cannot construct a 
language for itself. As regards freedom of the will, natural freedom is 
a ground of responsibility, and grace does not interfere with it. The will 
is the power of mind by which we choose aright ; but the exercise of the will 
is from the heart, and, as the heart. Will is the medium of active 
power, and operates according to the nature of the agent, and the nature of 
the agent is the source of power. What is needed to a good choice is an 
influence from God in the heart. A self-determining will is an absurdity, 
for if the will move itself it is both cause and effect. Motive determines 
the will. The motive determining the will has a place in the understanding, 
and it is through the understanding, wdiich is the key to the heart, that the 
will is moved. 
Rev. Preb. Irons, D.D. — I think the paper which has just been read is a 
very important one, and it is none the less so for the statement it contains, that 
this is the question of the age, and one which we as Christians have not, as 
yet, sufficiently attended to. (Hear.) There is no doubt that St. Augustine con- 
tributed to the stream of Christian thought, and it has scarcely settled down 
into a clear and healthy condition from his day to ours. There is truth in 
the statement of the essayist, that the Scotch philosophers, who have a great 
deal to answer for in the matter, were so much afraid of the doctrine of free- 
will, that they absolutely practically denied it in the whole region, both of 
ethics and religion. I wholly deny that the grace which comes from God to 
assist the efforts of imperfect man, at all destroys human will. (Hear.) That it 
interferes with it I will admit, in some sense, as a matter of course. Why, 
otherwise, should it come at all ? But if it gives a man clearer knowledge. 
