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to little purpose. Although my friends sometimes give me credit for meta- 
physics, I cannot speak offhand upon that subject, and if I attempted it I 
fear I should not be intelligible. There is one thing, however, I would wish 
to say, and that is, that I am very much struck by the value of the paper 
which has been read to us. (Hear, hear.) I think it exactly meets the great 
difficulties with which religious matters have been surrounded at the present 
day. These difficulties I have never regarded as scientific, properly so called : 
they are metaphysical or philosophical ones. And this paper appears to me 
to state that philosophical view which is in accordance with Divine revela- 
tion, as opposed to that philosophical view adopted by a certain class of 
scientific men which is opposed to revelation. Mr. Warington has criticized 
the paper upon a good many points, and it is my misfortune to feel that those 
points which Mr. Warington has called in question are the very points which 
I admire most. (Hear, hear.) I am sorry for that. If we take, for instance, 
the discussion with reference to Mr. Mill’s doctrine, which centres in the 
word “ know,” the whole point of the question, as between the two 
philosophies, is summed up in this, — whether knowledge expresses an active 
power or a passive impression on the mind. If knowledge is simply an 
impression derived from the senses, I cannot see how you can avoid the 
conclusion of Mr. Mill, — that conclusion which was first drawn by Bishop 
Berkeley, with regard to the non-existence of the material world, and after- 
wards by Hume, with regard to the non-existence of the spiritual world. 
Mr. Warington appears to assume that all our knowledge is from the senses. 
If so, by what sense do we know material substance, or our own personal 
existence ? We cannot see the soul, nor hear it, nor feel it 
Mr. Warington. — I spoke of external matter. 
Rev. David Greig. — Take matter. You cannot feel the substance of 
matter, you cannot see it. All that you have by the eye is simply an 
impression of colour, by the hand is simply an impression of resistance, and 
so on. Now, if all our knowledge is from the senses, how, in these circum- 
stances, are you ever to get beyond impressions ? It is impossible. An 
impression is just an impression : you cannot make anything else out of it. 
Thus, under this supposition, there is nothing in the world but impressions. 
You remove God and man and matter, leaving only a series of impressions. 
I do not see how you can avoid that conclusion. But we take our stand 
upon that which Professor Kirk has brought out. When we say we know a 
thing, we assume that there is something active in that knowledge. We 
assume that there is something in the mind which has the power of knowing. 
The process is this : W e receive an impression from sense. The mind is at 
first buried, so to speak, in the impression, but immediately separates itself 
from it, sets the impression before it as an object, sits in judgment on it, and 
draws conclusions. In this way the mind arrives at the conclusion of the 
existence of a soul in man, and of the existence of an outer nature. (Hear, 
hear.) There is just one other point I would make an observation upon, the 
distinction between the laws of nature and the usages of nature. It is a 
point extremely difficult to make intelligible ; but there is a distinction in it, 
