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Row comes to the conclusion that “ the real difficulty of the whole subject, 
and that which the author endeavours to unravel, is how the Infinite has 
created the finite ; ” and he regards it as “ beyond all human conception.” 
The subject need not be encumbered with the untrue supposition of the 
extension of spirit, though the suppression of that extension will only add 
to his difficulties a new one. I have said, “ If, then, the creation be in God, 
we must prepare to believe it to be only a mental conception, however real 
and material it may seem to us, and that seeming reality we must account 
for.” To me it is a mental conception in God’s mind, transferred to my own 
in a manner I will presently indicate. Mr. Row “ 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.” He fails to see that the human mind conceives 
the materiality of things because it is associated with a material body, in 
which the distinctive characteristic of matter can be mentally perceived ; 
nor does he even feel sure that God can conceive the existence of matter in 
the absence of a body. Mr. Row asks, of course with reference to man, 
“ whether mind is capable of forming geometrical conceptions apart from the 
idea of the senses.” It may be that it is not ; but, if the senses be necessary 
to the conception, man has them always in readiness. It is enough for my 
theory that I know the human mind associated with the senses can have the 
conceptions ; and reason tells me that God can be a geometrician without 
senses, which possibly may imply a similar faculty on a small scale in the 
case of man, made intellectual after the image of his Maker. 
As I wrote about “ intersecting spheres ” only to emphasize their non- 
existence, the fact that Mr. Row has not made out my meaning will have 
led him into no error. He charges me with an utterance “ strangely incon- 
sistent with the idea of the immutability of the Creator,” on the score that 
“ it suggests that God occupied Himself at the creation in conceiving these 
material spheres.” If I have rightly understood the charge, I must acknow- 
ledge my inability to comprehend Mr. Row’s construction of mutability. 
I come now to the observations of Mr. Reddie. If, as I believe, the 
derivation of things of which science takes cognisance is the derivation of 
science itself, my subject will have an appropriate title, and I may pass on 
to Mr. Reddie’s comments on the text of my paper. I am gratified that he 
has understood it well enough to say, “ When Mr. Laming supposes that the 
atoms of matter are geometrical conceptions, to which the Deity gave a kind 
of existence by ordaining that they should not interpenetrate or intersect each 
other, that gives you solidity and goes to solve the difficulty in understand- 
ing how anything solid which can resist any other thing may have proceeded 
from the fiat of the Eternal Spirit.” For he evidently conceives a possible 
modus in the creation of matter which it was the preliminary object of my 
theory to point out. To show the organization of matter “ into all the 
varieties and oeauties of visible nature,” to trace the whole architecture of 
physical creation from its first material foundation, could not be attempted 
in the few pages I laid before the society, my utmost endeavours extending 
no further towards that coveted revelation than to point to the moral will of 
