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Irons has treated this subject precisely in the same way as that by means of 
which great discoveries have been made of the laws and phenomena of the 
material world. He has treated the subject in such a way as to show us 
that there is precisely the same amount of evidence — I do not know that 
he does not go still further and demonstrate that there is much higher 
evidence— for the belief in human responsibility that there is for our belief 
in any of the laws which regulate physical matter. A great deal of the 
vague thought to which I have alluded arises from men only making 
themselves acquainted with natural philosophy through the authority of 
others, instead of investigating things for themselves. They take it for 
granted that a man has obtained a degree of evidence which is not to be 
found in any science whatever ; but the same uncertainties, the same doubts, 
the same difficulties which Dr. Irons has just set before us, in respect to 
moral philosophy, exist also in respect to what is termed natural philosophy. 
There is the same difficulty in defining, and the same difficulty in getting a 
clear idea ; in fact, there is as much difficulty in defining what is matter, or 
what is force, as there is in defining what is virtue, what is good, or what is 
evil. But the reason why we have made advances in natural philosophy is 
because we have taken up the subjects, and realized them so as to get, as it 
were, the main facts they present, leaving out of consideration anomalous facts, 
and being satisfied with what I may call an imperfect metaphysical acquaint- 
ance with the subject ; and, in order to make a similar advance in moral 
philosophy, yon must pursue the same way at first, for the purpose of getting 
a standing ground for human thought and human argument. I therefore 
think we are very much indebted to Dr. Irons for the philosophical manner 
in which he has dealt with the subject. The true method of induction is to 
take nothing for granted from mere authority, but to reason accurately and 
simply on phenomena, as the nature of those phenomena are discovered by 
us. There is one thing which, I think, threw considerable light on the 
subject, and which Mr. Greig brought forward in defence of Dr. Irons’s view. 
I cannot but conceive that there is such a thing as moral instinct, as well as 
that vast and wonderful power termed instinct, accorded to the lower animals 
of creation. I believe that we possess far more natural instinct than is gene- 
rally admitted, but I do not believe that this instinct is concerned simply 
with man’s physical powers. Who can understand the wonderful mathe- 
matical instinct which enables the bee to make its cell in so marvellous 
a manner ? Who can understand one-thousandth part of the wonderful 
instinct accorded to the brute creation ? We find, practically, man showing 
that he possesses some of these instincts, though to a certain extent overborne 
and depressed, but occasionally heightened by the exercise of his natural 
reason. I cannot conceive but that man, also, in a state of perfectibility, 
was endowed with moral instincts. (Hear, hear.) All these subjects, when 
gone into, bring forward one great and valuable fact, which is the fact of 
what I call the natural history of man’s moral nature, which cannot be denied. 
If you enter into this subject philosophically, you build up an ideal moral 
perfection. You have first to build up a mind of moral character such as 
