131 
Then, again, with regard to the great writers among the Romans, 
Cicero himself, writing of the power of the gods, — while he ignored 
and despised the many superstitions around him, — did contend that no 
man of any talent or power of comprehension would deny the existence 
of a Supreme Being. “ Cicero maintained,” his classic biographer tells 
us, “ that there was one God or supreme Being, incorporeal, eternal, self- 
existent, who created the world by His power, and sustained it by His 
providence. This he inferred from the consent of all nations, the order and 
beauty of the heavenly bodies, the evident marks of counsel, wisdom, and a 
fitness to certain ends observable in the whole and in every part of the 
visible world ; and declares that person unworthy of the name of man who 
can believe all this to have been made by chance, when with the utmost 
stretch of human wisdom we cannot penetrate the wisdom which contrived 
it.” (1 Tusculan , 27 ; De Natura Deorum, iii. 3 ; 2 Middleton , 340). In 
his beautiful Tusculan Disputations he argues, and argues forcibly, from the 
nature of God, from the immortality of the soul, that those who are good and 
well instructed ought not to fear death, but account it a blessing, as an 
exodus from a world of change, as an entrance into one of permanent happi- 
ness. I merely advance these topics to show that we have other arguments 
than those already brought forward in proof of the existence of a Supreme 
Creator. In fact, if we take all the languages of the present day, we find 
a universal assent among mankind to the belief that such a Being does 
exist. Take the French, the German, the English, or any other 
language, and ask yourselves, how are you to account for the origin 
of all those terms which relate to the Deity, unless there is the 
universal assent of all the nations speaking those languages to the idea that 
there is a Supreme Being? While adding these few arguments to those 
which others have advanced, I certainly must say that I agree in the assertion 
that it is also a question of history. We have received a revelation, and 
that revelation does confirm those ideas which have been put forward on 
the subject by the greatest writers of all times. Looking on the matter 
in this light, I think there can be but one answer given to the question 
propounded by Mr. Lias — “ Is it possible to know God ?” — namely, that, 
according to the universal evidence, that knowledge is possible in some 
degree. (Applause.) 
Mr. D. Howard, V.P.I.C. — It appears to me that this paper is one of 
the very best that could have been brought before a society like this, which 
has to deal with the errors of Herbert Spencer’s philosophy. Three hundred 
years ago Bacon had to protest against the misrepresentation of Aristotle’s 
as it was then taught ; and I must say that I think Dean Mansel, has 
suffered almost as severely at the hands of his professed followers, 
Herbert Spencer and others, as ever Aristotle did. It is one thing to say, 
“You can never have a full knowledge of God, before whom the 
seraphim veil their faces ” ; it is another thing to say, “ You can know 
nothing about God, therefore do not worship Him.” Hence its intention 
surely was to teach that you can never so know God as to be able to sit in 
