423 
that, after having so expressed himself in his Essay on Liberty, he has gone 
further, and, according to the newspapers, has refused to say he acknowledges 
the being of a God. The two things go together ; the latter explains the 
former. Previously, when we found fault with the sneers at our religion 
contained in Mr. Mill’s books, we were told, in a triumphant way, that we 
could not lay our finger upon any passage of direct denial of fundamental 
truth ; and there was a sort of popular truth in -that, because he had veiled his 
intentions, and average readers would very frequently fail to perceive his drift. 
But Mr. English has, in this paper, brought out into strong relief some of 
his most mischievous sentiments, and now it is for Mr. Mill and his friends, 
when they see the prominence here given to these things, to make the best 
of them, and to meet us if they will in this place. There will be many 
opportunities in addition to this of discussing the ethics of Positivism. But 
before I sit down let me allude to a point raised by Mr. Row as to the 
passage from Adam Smith ; and observe that not until the time of Porphyry 
and Iamblichus, both Neo-Platonists and born in the third century of the 
Christian era, have we anything in the heathen writers of Alexandria that 
corresponds to that passage. 
Mr. Reddie. — Allow me to observe on that point that Cudworth and 
Hutcheson are also referred to in the paper quoted from Adam Smith as 
belonging to that school of Neo-Platonists ; but no one would dispute that 
Cud worth’s writings are especially imbued with Christianity ; and Hutche- 
son, in the introduction to his Moral Philosophy , addressed to the students 
of the universities, while he recommends them to go to elementary books, in 
order to obtain all the instruction they can from the Greek and Roman 
writers, goes on further to say : — “ Have recourse also to the yet purer 
fountain of the Holy Scripture, which alone gives sinful mortals hopes of a 
happy immortality ” ; and throughout his lectures he always leaves the 
question of human virtue open to supernatural influences on man by the 
Spirit of God. And so I believe that all those writers to whom Adam Smith 
has referred were essentially Christian, and unquestionably those named 
were not pre-Christian writers. I make these remarks now, but as the 
subject is a very large one, and as so many points in Mr. English’s suggestive 
essay are yet entirely unnoticed, I beg leave to move the adjournment of the 
discussion to our next meeting. 
The Rev. W. Mitchell seconded this proposal, which was agreed to ; and 
the Meeting then adjourned. 
