reasonable persons bold. Then I notice Professor Kirk refers, in a part of the 
paper which Mr. Redclie passed over, to inodes of existence. He says : — 
“ It is necessary to be careful that we really understand what we mean by 
a mode of existence. We get at this by passing from the mere abstract idea 
of a mode, or maimer, to the concrete idea of the mode or manner of being in 
a particular object.” 
I hope that is a misprint, because the process is in reality just the reverse ; 
we first get the idea of a mode in a concrete object, and then make our 
abstract. Then as to that illustration, which seems so taking, concerning 
the gunpowder, and the inference that because power in one case is exhibited 
on the insertion of a red-hot wire, which is not exhibited in the other, 
therefore there is some substance present in the one which is absent in the 
other. Let us alter the circumstances slightly. Suppose we take, in one 
case, powder in an early stage of its manufacture, when in the form of a solid 
cake, and we insert a red-hot wire, it also does not explode. We take, how- 
ever, the same powder, of exactly the same composition, made at the same 
place, and by the same people, a piece, if you will, of the same cake ; we grind 
it into small particles, we insert the red-hot wire, it explodes. Now, if 
Professor Kirk’s argument is logical, we are bound to conclude that there is 
a distinct substance present in the one case which is not present in the other. 
The argument leads to a false conclusion ; it cannot, then, be true. (Hear, 
hear.) 
Mr. Reddie. — There is another substance present. There is air between 
the granulations, after the cake is powdered. 
Professor Oliver Byrne. — And it does not become powder until it is 
milled. 
Mr. Warington. — It is the same. substance exactly 
Mr. Reddie.— It is not powder ! 
Mr. Warington. — I merely take this illustration because it is the one 
which Professor Kirk himself selects. Let me add another. I take a piece 
of iron which has been magnetized, and another which has not been mag- 
netized. Now, you will remember Professor Kirk lays down as a principle 
of science, that magnetism and its cognate forces are not entities, but mere 
modes of existence. In the case of these two pieces of iron, then, the only- 
difference between them is in their mode of existence. There is no substance, 
according to Professor Kirk, present in the one which is not present in the 
other, since he denies that there is any substantial entity in magnetism 
Professor Byrne. — You cannot trace the magnetism without the iron. 
Mr. Warington. — Now, in this case, if any one compared the two pieces, 
he finds at once a property present in the one which is absent from the 
other. If he applies a bit of iron to the one, it is held fast ; if to the other, 
it is not. Would not the legitimate inference, then, be, if this line of argu- 
ment is sound, that there was some substance present in the one which was 
absent from the other? Yet, according to Professor Kirk’s principle, this 
would be false, since magnetism is no substance whatever. I am not saying 
