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0 choice and ability to judge and determine ? And if we turn to other 
languages we shall find that it is the same in the French, German, Greek, or 
Hebrew, as it is with us. In fact, the whole consensus of {States and 
peoples, who have and do use language, supports the conclusion that 
language supposes freedom of will. Again, to appeal to other facts — 
1 do not wish to enter on the theological arguments founded upon 
prayer and praying to the Supreme Being, because we are discussing 
the more scientific aspect of the question, and it is well to lay aside 
for a moment the theological — but, when we wish to influence on 
angry man, do we not entreat him '? When a father wishes to persuade 
his child, does he not use the arguments of persuasion, and does he not, 
in following such a course, presuppose freedom of will in the child 
he seeks to persuade ? Again, in politics also, what do we mean by a 
petition or prayer to Parliament ? Is not that a process intended to influence 
the intelligence of the representatives of the nation ? And what is meant by 
sending those representatives to Parliament, but that they are to exercise 
their intelligence and their wills for the benefit of the nation ? 
Mr. Herbert Spencer has advanced somewhat beyond Mr. Hume and 
Mr. Priestley. He has, with great plausibility, told us that there are 
certain nerve-currents, and that these are evidenced in what he calls 
nervous energy and force. This is perfectly true : there is, doubtless, 
such a thing as nervous energy, and such a thing as force, which are 
exhibited in the raising of the hand, the movement of the foot, or in 
any action of the body. In all this he has surpassed Hume and Priestley, 
but after all he has not established anything as to this nervous energy 
which Dr. Carpenter and other physiologists had not taught. (Hear, 
hear.) To support his other and more dangerous tenets he hits appealed in 
terms of some eloquence to the consciousness of each individual. But 
individuals differ and disagree. Whose consciousness shall we take ? Our 
own is preferable to that of another man’s, especially when, like Mr. Spencer, 
he lowers us in the scale of moral beiugs. But the question being as to the 
nature of men in general, must be determined by the voice of preponderating 
testimony. But how, it may be asked, are the suffrages to be collected ? In 
every civilised nation the induction has been already made, the suffrages 
taken ; the case has been tried, and the decision is on record ; the verdict has 
been given without reference to the controversy in dispute. 
What, let me ask, is the object of Parliament in making a law ? V/hat 
is in the mind of the Legislature when it passes a law for the benefit of the 
nation at large ? Does it not forbid, condemn, and impose a punishment for 
the transgression of that law, on the supposition that men and women, as a 
rule, individually possess self-control and the power of choosing the good 
and rejecting the evil ? Being a practising barrister, I know, we all know, 
what is frequently put forward as the defence of those who have broken the 
law, W’"hen a criminal is put on his trial for a particular offence, how often 
does he plead that he has committed it by accident or mistake or uninten- 
tionally,— that he had no guilty mind. And the defence of accident is 
