35 
their natural disposition, or their motives, and consequently we never can 
truly judge our neighbours — we can only truly judge ourselves. This con- 
sideration enables us to see that when we have a thorough knowledge of all 
those facts which nature itself teaches us, we can better understand the abso- 
lute wisdom, and the wonderful knowledge of human nature and its require- 
ments, which we find exhibited in revealed truth. There we are exhorted to 
examine and judge ourselves, but not to judge or condemn others ; because 
we cannot possibly do so completely. There is One only that can truly reach 
the hearts of all, and judge all men : — “ There is One that seeketh and 
judgeth.” (Applause.) 
Rev. C. A. Row. — I feel it due to Dr. Irons to express my cordial appro- 
bation of his paper. Out of every twenty sentences I acquiesce most fully in at 
least nineteen, and this is a fact more remarkable because I never met Dr. Irons 
except in this room ; and although our modes of thinking are somewhat 
different, we have arrived at the same fundamental conclusions on all 
important points. And this leads to a hope that if we only pursue the 
right course of taking the facts alone, getting rid of mere abstract and 
a priori theories, and arguing entirely from the facts, we shall find that many 
who think that they are wholly at issue with each other, are pursuing a 
path which in the end will enable them to arrive at the same conclusions. 
Dr. Rigg, who belongs to an entirely different school of thought, seems also 
to have arrived at the same conclusions ; and quite agrees with Dr. Irons in 
the great importance of having this subject well ventilated. No one can be 
acquainted, however slightly, with current literature, but must know how 
excessively it is leavened with Positivism. It is impossible to read exten- 
sively and not to feel that the principle of the accountability of man has 
been dimmed, in later days, by philosophical speculations, and though this 
paper of Dr. Irons may seem, at first sight, a dry one (for it is impossible to 
do it justice without having had it previously in your hands), I have no 
hesitation in speaking of it as one of the very best defences of the doctrine 
of human accountability which I have ever heard. Dr. Irons has taken the 
best "possible ground in the mode of procedure which he has adopted 
because he has based his procedure upon facts, and facts alone — deducing 
from those facts a theory only which will be covered by the facts and 
nothing more ; and I quite agree that if we can only get rid of the miserable 
habit of resting upon baseless a priori theories, and make our deduc- 
tions from facts alone, we shall come far nearer to a substantial agree- 
ment in respect to all questions affecting morals, religion, and philosophy, 
than we are at present at all aware of. Dr. Irons has put before us 
the important position that the facts of human nature can be taken as the 
ground of a science of human nature. That is a principle he distinctly 
lays down, and I have great difficulty in criticising his paper from the very 
fact that we have only a portion of the argument before us. If we had the 
whole, or even the greater portion of the subject before us, I might find 
something to criticise on the principle that it is much easier to pull down 
than to build up. I am impeded also by the consideration that if I really 
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