427 
no doubt or hesitation whatever when I contemplate the future ; but every 
one needs to become very earnest in the face of these facts. It is because I 
feel that this Institute has a mighty work to do in standing forward in 
God’s name to meet the infidelity of the age at every point that I deprecate 
anything like a weak treatment of a moral subject. Now one word as to 
my own paper. It will be very painful of course after this to say even one 
word 
Mr. Reddie. — But are you not travelling into a foreign subject, Dr. 
Irons ? We are rather discursive as it is, and it would be as well, I think, 
not to speak upon a new subject. 
Rev. Dr. Irons. — You seem to suppose that in what I said earlier I 
was impugning the character of our Institute by objecting to the feebleness 
of some portions of Mr. English’s paper. But I said what I have said simply 
because I value our Institute. I do not wish it to be supposed that I am in 
the slightest degree disparaging it, but the reverse. I was about to say that 
with respect to the paper which the Council have been good enough to ask 
me to read, I shall be quite unable to deal with it in one single evening. I 
should take up so much time with the paper itself, that it would be impos- 
sible to have any discussion upon it ; therefore, with the permission of the 
chairman, I will read only a portion on the first occasion, and that will be 
purely ethical, and will have nothing whatever to do with the revealed part 
of ethics. 
Mr. Reddie. — I am sorry I have been somewhat misunderstood in the 
remarks which I felt it my duty to make officially, as the Hon. Secretary of 
the Institute. I think it is undesirable that any one should go into any general 
discussion as to the importance of this Institute, or into its general prin- 
ciples or objects, because all our members know that this Society was formed 
for the purpose of meeting the Atheism to which Dr. Irons has referred. 
I also think it would be very unwise if our Council were to take an extremely 
— shall I say harsh ? — view of the papers submitted to them by our fellow- 
workers in the Institute. Such a course would necessitate our rejection of 
many more papers submitted to us than we already refuse. I am sorry, in 
some respects, that Dr. Irons has spoken again so very strongly to-night — 
for he did so at our last meeting — upon the general character of Mr. English’s 
paper, though I am extremely anxious to have as much as possible of criticism 
on the arguments which Mr. English has advanced. No doubt there is no 
apology necessary for the most free discussion of any paper. Mr. English, 
of all writers, comes before us as a free lance : he speaks plainly himself ; he 
is a critic, and criticises many writers ; and every one is entitled to speak 
quite freely upon his paper. But in doing this we must not lose sight of 
the merits of the paper ; and one of these is, that it opens up, for almost the 
first time in the proceedings of our Institute, the subject of ethics. It is not 
absolutely the first time the subject has been brought before us, for Mr. Row 
read a very valuable paper on Buckle’s History of Civilization, last year, 
in which ethics were largely dealt with. Mr. English had not the advantage 
of seeing that paper, or doubtless he would in some respects have modified 
VOL. III. 2 G 
