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to the Eternal Creator, and by what means He has brought it into existence, 
are points which are entirely beyond all human conception. If we dash our 
heads against such points, we shall simply damage our brains. Mr. Laming 
says further : — 
“ Created matter is, on this showing, still immaterial to all immaterial 
things, which have no bounding surfaces for them to rest against ; and 
materially solid to all material things which have such surfaces.” 
Now, that is so obscure that I am not prepared to assign any definite 
meaning to it. It seems to me to introduce confusion among all our con- 
ceptions, subjective and objective. Are we to believe that there is no such 
thing as objectivity ? He goes on : — 
“ From this it follows that things are not what they are in themselves 
absolutely, but rather what they are in relation to something else.” 
That proposition, taken by itself, asserts that there is no such thing as ova'ia 
in existence, but everything is merely in a state of becoming ovata. Ideas 
were no part of the material creation, according to Plato ; but the material 
creation simply existed so far as it partook in those ideas which stand on a 
higher intellectual basis. According to this passage, then, there is no such 
thing as ovaia, but only a perpetual becoming. We can illustrate what 
we conceive to be a “ constant becoming ” by our notion of time. My notion 
of time is undoubtedly that it is not a present thing, but a thing constantly 
marking the past. That is a very fair conception of the view held by the old 
Greek philosophers, that there was no such thing as the existence of matter, 
but only the yeivofiEvov or perpetual becoming 
Mr. Reddie. — You do not dispute the opposite, I suppose — that there is a 
substantive reality in material things. There is certainly a great deal to be 
said for the view that material things have no substantial existence ; and it 
would be interesting if you advanced something on the other side of the 
question. 
Mr. Row. — I would not undertake to do that. As I have already said, 
there are certain things around me which have certain qualities attached to 
them, and which may or may not have an absolute existence of their own as 
matter ; but I say that God Almighty has so formed my mind that I cannot 
help believing in the existence of something objective in them 
Mr. Reddie. — Even Berkeley would admit as much as that ; but the 
question is, What is that something which is objective ? 
Mr. Row. — We cannot reach that point. There is another curious passage 
in Mr. Laming’s paper : — 
“ The atoms of matter, thus constituted , have only form , volume , and 
physical solidity .” 
That is the exact theory of Democritus, and also of Lucretius. And 
Democritus, for the purpose of creating the universe out of atoms, says, in 
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