445 
with me to prove that grace plants itself upon the ethical tree and ramifies 
through its every sprig and bough — see pages 395-7. The confusion I 
apprehend is in Dr. Irons’s own mind — we have no revelation of ethics 
except in the nature of man — revelation proper has a very different object, 
to shew man a system of grace. To talk of a revelation of that which has 
existed from creation would be absurd — the New Testament is the true 
interpreter of previously existing ethical facts, it is not a revealer of ethical 
truth. Dr. Irons is “ not aware that there is a part of human nature called 
the sensitivity ; it is a term he is not familiar with — it requires explanation.” 
I hope the following explanation will make him familiar with its use and 
meaning — a late professor of moral philosophy has written : — “ Sensitivity 
(to aioQriTiKbv) is now used as a general term to denote the capacity of 
feeling as distinguished from intellect and will. It includes sensations both 
external and internal, &c.” These are the words of a well known writer who 
was for about a quarter of a century professor of moral philosophy in the 
University of Glasgow, and I had thought that most men who claimed to 
have any acquaintance with ethical subjects had been familiar with this term. 
Its Greek equivalent is not strange to either the New Testament or the 
works of Plato. I quite agree with Dr. Irons that essayists should not be 
“ complimented as a matter of course indeed, I like the principle so well 
that I would even extend it to speakers. I never said will was “ invariably 
guided and necessitated ; ” but I have tried on several pages to prove 
that it is not. 
Mr. Reddie. 
Dr. Rigg having answered several points I may pass over them, and correct 
Mr. Reddie in two places. He says : — “ all that is moral or immoral is con- 
nected with mind alone, and not with the mere animal body.” What then 
of the “ springs ” of action ? what of Butler’s cases of “ usurpation,” of 
tl breaking in upon nature ? ” and what of St. Paul’s “ keeping under the 
body ? ” That the mind’s office is to regulate action everybody admits, but 
the above sentence contradicts all mankind except that part of it which is 
Mr. Reddie’s. Again my words “ and lastly confines itself to laws, the God 
of this world, &c.,” surely ought never to have been misunderstood — they 
do not refer to any “ connection ” between “ law ” and the “ evil spirit,” but 
to that atheistic phase of positivism, or that atheistic phase of thought in 
positive philosophers which refuses to see anything beyond mere “law.” If 
Mr. Reddie dislikes to have texts quoted he should set a better example, for 
of all speakers he is the most frequent offender. He says I am a “free 
lance ; ” he will not, therefore, object to hear from me in my own character. 
The passage in Philippians was not quoted as if there were “ any question 
raised as to whether there be any such thing as virtue,” but as setting forth 
in Scripture language the objective part of virtue itself, as truth, honesty, 
purity, &c. The “ presentative faculties ” are such as bring before the mind 
