194 
He is now going to account for the creation of material things : and if he 
had been here, I would have asked him whether mind is capable of forming 
geometrical conceptions apart from ideas which enter through the senses : — 
I mean the finite mind, supposing it had no senses whereby it succeeds in 
forming those geometrical conceptions ? I apprehend not. But the author 
says : — 
“ Now, men have minds, and each can form conceptions, — it may be of 
small geometrical spheres, which it truly imagines to be within itself in 
space.” 
I do not know what the “ it ” refers to, and therefore I am not able to attach 
a meaning to this passage. Nor can I understand this : — 
“ Those spheres may be conceived to be either distinctly separate, or to so 
intersect one another that any number of them may be more or less com- 
pounded with each other.” 
That seems to me to be a very indefinite expression. I have made some 
efforts to get a definite idea out of it, but I am sorry to say I have failed. 
Mr. Laming proceeds : — 
“As in the case of our own mind, at every instant, to a finite extent, so 
the mind of God at the creation can be imagined to have occupied itself, to 
an infinite extent, with first conceiving such immaterial spheres, and then, 
with a sovereignty entirely His own, commanding them never to penetrate or 
intersect one another , even in thought .” 
Now, it seems to me that that sentence is strangely inconsistent with the idea 
of the immutability of the Creator. ' It suggests that God occupied Himself 
at the creation in conceiving these material spheres. Then the phrase at the 
end — “ even in thought.” Is that the case in geometrical spheres ? This 
certainly wants explanation ; and again I am compelled to regret the absence 
of the author of the paper. Again : — 
“ That irresistible command, which no creature has the power to issue 
or to question, would, to all intents and purposes, convert the geometrical 
spheres instantaneously into the hard resisting matter of Newton, existing 
as a conception in the mind of God, just as they had done while purely geo- 
metrical in character.” 
It seems to me that the theory at the bottom of this is the theory of the old 
philosophers that there is one continual flux going on, everything joining in 
it. I can understand the theory that to the Eternal Mind there is no such 
thing as matter — that matter exists only to the mind of man, and that, after 
all, to a very limited extent 
Mr. Reddie. — That is your own opinion ? 
Mr. Row. — No, no ; it is the opinion stated here by Mr. Laming 
Mr. Reddie. — Then do you controvert it ? 
Mr. Row. — It seems to me that it is an assumption which wants proving. 
Many of these points may be quite true, but I say, give us some proof of 
them before you call on us to believe. What is the precise relation of matter 
