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wished to do justice to the paper, I should quote it from beginning to end in 
the strongest terms of approbation. It seems to me that the whole of the 
original groundwork of the essay rests on one fact which constitutes the 
basis of human accountability, and that that resolves itself into the general 
principle that every being is accountable and responsible who can speak of 
bimself as “ I.” That seems to be the basis of human accountability, and it 
involves the very principles of all voluntary action ; for the meaning of being 
able to assert of ourselves “ I,” is that we apprehend a notion of personality. 
I suppose that there is no lower order of creation the members of which can 
think of themselves as “ I,” and I agree in the dicta of Mr. Morris in his Cam- 
bridge lectures as to the great importance of having a clear conception of this 
subject. There is also a set of lectures written by Professor Ferrier, which 
generally agree with Professor Morris on that point ; but when I came to 
another point I was profoundly astonished to find that Ferrier could assert that 
the power of thinking myself “ I ” creates “ I.” That I read with unmitigated 
astonishment. It almost knocked me down, so astonished was I to find that 
a man like Ferrier could make so tremendous a jump to a conclusion. 
There are many things which, did time admit, I should like to draw attention to, 
and especially to many passages of the highest importance in the paper with 
respect to moral philosophy, but as I cannot do so at present I will simply 
glance at one or two points. Dr. Pigg, I think, made some observations on 
the subject of causation ; and I wish to state the impression formed on my 
own mind on reading Dr. Irons’s paper upon that subject. I thought that 
Dr. Irons meant to assert that all proper notions of causality were derived not 
from phenomena but from “self,” and originate in a feeling of “ self” as an 
agent. That is what I understood him to mean. I am aware that there is 
some little obscurity in the statement, and it is not to be wondered at, because 
to compress such a mass of matter as is involved into a paper like this, is a 
desperately hard undertaking ; for it is far easier to write a voluminous book 
than it is to compress and concentrate its matter into a small space. The 
public, too, is a little unreasonable ; for, guided by the size of the book, they 
will pay more for a vast mass of matter, so diluted that the point is almost 
lost, than they will for a smaller work which contains the whole of it much 
better expressed. That is my impression of what Dr. Irons meant to say. 
I think that that is a most important point to establish in these days, for I 
fancy that I have sometimes heard something to the contrary even in this 
room. My idea of what is our notion of causality is that it is derived from 
the conception of “ self ” as an independent moral cause, and one passage I 
can refer to in which Dr. Irons has made that pretty plain where he speaks 
of man being the creator of his moral action. That passage is worthy of great 
commendation. (Hear, hear.) It fully explains that Dr. Irons meant 
that man stands in the relation of a creator to his moral action, and it very 
much illustrates what is meant in the Old Testament, where it is said that 
man was made in the image of God (applause) ; that, as the Almighty in his 
infiniteness is free and independent without limit, so finite man is, in his own 
finite sphere, a free and independent agent. The fact of the voluntariness of 
