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for themselves — who spurn the very idea of “ authority,” and 
who ridicule the word “ obedience,” have left the world one 
after another, unbenefitted and unblest by any appreciable 
moral good, He who did claim to speak with “ authority,” 
who did enforce the duty of <e obedience,” in all things lawful 
and honest, went straight home to the hearts of men with 
His teaching, touched there a responsive chord, and left His 
mark so deeply impressed upon the race, that after eighteen 
centuries have passed away, there are still found to be some- 
thing like 350 millions of living disciples ready to add their 
testimony to that of old, that “ never man spake like that 
man.” 
The Chairman. — It is now our duty to return thanks to the author of this 
paper. Our thanks are especially due to him for introducing us to another 
field on which to meet our enemies. I am sure we are all very much 
indebted to him for bringing forward this subject. 
Rev. C. A. Row. — The subject which has been introduced to us to-night 
by Mr. English is one in which I feel a particular interest, and to which I 
have given as much thought as to any subject whatever. There are many 
points in Mr. English’s paper which are worthy of our deepest attention, 
although I do not think the paper, as a whole, has taken quite so wide a view 
of the subject as it might have done. But I will confine what observations 
I have to offer to that portion of it which deals with moral philosophy, and 
in such criticism as I shall be able to enter upon I hope the author will feel 
that I am only actuated by a desire to lead to an enlarged view of the subject. 
The author says : — “ In that great principle of action, faith, we see an 
extension to what is spiritual of that confidence which, by nature, man was 
formed to repose in his fellow-man.” N ow I do not think that this is a 
sufficiently comprehensive view of the nature of faith, but as that question 
will form a portion of a paper which is now in the hands of the Council and 
which I shall read to the Institute shortly, I will not discuss it at present, 
although I should have liked to have offered a few observations upon it. 
Further on Mr. English says : — “ Ethicaljor moral philosophy is the science 
of right and duty — the ‘ habit of virtue ’ according to Aristotle : 1 the art 
or science of living well’ according to Cicero.” But I doubt whether you 
can find in the ethics of the ancients the Christian idea of duty at all. In 
the Greek philosophy, all ethics were a portion of politics, and there is no 
idea of duty contained in the Greek writers further than that duty which 
binds men to political society. The highest moral motive of the Greek 
philosophy is to icaXov, that is, the morally beautiful ; but that must not 
mislead us into the idea that there is such a thing in the heathen 
philosophy as the Christian idea of duty. In “ the science of the habit of 
virtue ” the writer gives not a bad definition of what Aristotle meant by 
ethics. No doubt, from his point of view, it was the science of the habit 
