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judgment upon His revealed will, a very different thing from saying that 
you cannot so know God as to receive a revelation from Him. I must say 
that I wish Mr. Spencer and his school would be a little more consistent, 
and would learn how little they know of noumena , and how entirely our 
knowledge is confined to phenomena. If, with all these doctrines of the 
conservation of force, and the other scientific dicta that are advanced and 
received as absolute revelations of truth, our opponents would only see that 
every word they say about the difficulty of accepting religion is far more 
true about these would-be scientific declarations, I think a great deal 
of good would be effected ; but even though we may not accept, but regard 
as misconceptions, some of the views which have been expressed about 
Dean Mansel’s philosophy, let us not be ready to admit that we cannot 
know God. It is true that we cannot know Him entirely ; but, after all, 
there is a great deal of regulative truth, which is far from being absolute 
truth, and it is well we should remember that our conception of God is 
imperfect, and that when we have to argue, not with Mr. Spencer, but with 
another school of unbelievers, as to this or that point being inconceivable, 
we shall then require this argument. It is quite another matter in dealing 
with the Spencer school. I think that this paper gives us a sound and 
wise and true method of philosophy or theology — the inductive method. 
It deals with the question from the experience we have and the knowledge 
we derive from the phenomena around us, and argues from these with 
irresistible force. These high flights of metaphysics are more convenient 
to use as arguments to defend a foregone conclusion than to persuade our 
own minds. There are, unfortunately, those who will not know God. 
They cast about for reasons, as we find in their metaphysical books ; but 
I believe in the majority of cases the desire is not to know God, and I think 
in this we find a great fact to be remembered in dealing with many of 
the sceptics of the present day, namely, that there is not the desire to 
know, and, therefore, there never can be any true knowledge. (Applause.)] 
Mr. H. C. Dent. — A speaker who has just left the room has mentioned 
the word “ evolution.” In the sense in which that word is very often used, 
and in which I think it has absolutely no meaning, the doctrine is one in 
which we cannot believe. The doctrine of evolution is, I believe, to be 
interpreted as meaning that a living creature naturally makes advances, 
however infinitesimal, towards a higher condition than that of its pre- 
decessor. To speak of a child’s perceptions and faculties being evolved, 
is, therefore, erroneous, because, when we speak of a child and the enlarge- 
ment of his intellectual and physical powers, we do not mean that they 
are growing beyond those of his predecessor, but that they are simply 
increasing with the child’s natural growth. I desired to offer this remark, 
because the words “ evolution ” and “ evolved ” are very frequently used 
in contradictory senses. 
The Chairman. — I will now, as chairman, take the liberty of saying a 
few words on what is to me a rather delicate subject. I have heard the 
name of Dean Mansel very often referred to. He was my tutor and my 
