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science in its relation to other sciences and to Christianity ; and I would 
say that ethical science ought, in an association like ours, to he regarded 
per sc and previous altogether to the conception of revelation. If man is a 
responsible being at all, he is so before revelation comes to him. Man 
as man, is accountable for his actions everywhere, and if he were not 
accountable beforehand, revelation by coming to him could not make him 
an accountable being. But the two things are mixed up together in a 
strange way in this paper. Ideas which are purely Christian ideas, are 
mixed with those which are purely philosophical and ethical, so that you 
cannot tell where the ethics end and where the revealed system really begins. 
Now man, if we are to regard him as a being responsible to God and to his 
fellow-creatures, must be first of all contemplated as responsible to his fellow- 
men. In the first instance he finds himself in society held acccountable 
undoubtedly by his fellow-men for what he does, and the idea of God, though 
implanted in him, is elicited from his nature subsequently. That prior 
notion of accountability belongs to him as a conscious being from the very 
moment he begins to act among his fellows. The religious idea of account- 
ability is a subsequent idea. Various additional helps are given ; many 
new truths are implanted by revelation ; but those helps and those truths 
are wholly subsequent, in modo concipiendi as well as in fact, to those 
prior notions of accountability. There should then have been a careful line 
drawn between ethics and revealed religion. The notion of grace, for 
example — and I only give it as an example— the notion of grace is assumed 
in one part of the paper. We as Christians thank our God that He does 
impart His grace to strengthen our defective moral agency, but we have no 
business as philosophers to assume the idea of grace until we have cleared 
the ground beforehand and shown the nature of the previous accountability— 
the nature of the defect — the need of the supply. Then I find the same unhappy 
deficiency in the paper in treating the question of free will — the mingling, 
that is, of the two sets of ideas, the ethical and the revealed ; the ethical 
and the purely Christian or religious. If you will turn to the chapter on 
“ the efficient cause of human action ” you will find it quite impossible to 
ascertain what the philosophy of the writer is. He assumes in every point. 
He says : — “The appetites, desires, affections, &c., forming that part of 
human nature called the sensitivity, were designed to be under the direction 
and control of reason and conscience.” I suppose there are at least half a 
dozen enormous assumptions in that sentence — assumptions which imply 
both religion and moral philosophy, but in the most indistinct way. The 
sentence puzzles me. Then he goes on : — “ Yet these springs and guides are 
also dependent upon the will, as the last link in the chain of intention and 
the first of action. But what is volition ? how comes it to pass ? Do the 
sensitivity and intellect invariably guide and necessitate the will ? ” I seem 
to be reading words without any clear and logical meaning at all. I am not 
at all aware that there is a part of human nature called the sensitivity ; it is 
a term that I am not familiar with — it requires explanation. Nor am I at 
all aware that the sensitivity and intellect invariably guide and necessitate 
