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how vastly superior is the teaching ! Compare it with the 
absurd representation of heads by Agassiz, and how infinitely 
more powerful is its self-evidence than all his fancies on the 
many human creations ! I must say that it seems to need 
only that one fairly compare this Sacred Truth with that which 
sets up as its rival, in order to his feeling the innermost depths 
of his intellectual being reached with the conviction that 
Moses wrote as the taught of God. 
The Chairman. — I am sure- you will all be glad to return a vote of thanks 
to Professor Kirk for his very valuable contribution to our Transactions, and 
I now call on any gentleman who has any remarks to make to open the 
discussion. 
Mr. Poyer.- — I shall occupy the attention of the Institute this evening but. 
a very short time. If Professor Kirk were present, I should simply put to 
him one or two questions. But as he is not here, I must adopt a somewhat 
different method. I learn from the Journal of Transactions that on former 
occasions the Darwinian doctrine has been brought before the Society, once 
by Mr. W arington, and afterwards by the Honorary Secretary, and I am a 
little surprised that it should be brought forward again. Certainly I derived, 
myself, the impression from the second paper on the subject — the one by Mr. 
Reddie — that if the refutation of a superficial and irrational doctrine could 
possibly be made effectual and conclusive in the short space of some twenty 
pages, the work was then done once and for ever. I say that with some 
diffidence, as the Honorary Secretary is present, but I am sure he will not 
misunderstand the motive which leads me to make this avowal. Professor 
Kirk has founded his argument very much upon metaphysical considerations ; 
indeed he tells us, in his opening, that he elects to discuss the subject 
metaphysically. That is to say, he takes hold of certain terms which he 
finds in Darwin’s book, and endeavours to ascertain their essential meaning 
in their logical or metaphysical relations. I think, however, that he has 
ventured one or two rather large assertions. He braces some few terms 
together, and seems to argue that they have only a subjective validity — only 
a relation in the mind : that there is nothing external, nothing objective, 
corresponding to them. For instance, he takes the terms “ form,’’ “ type,” 
“ life,” “ force,” and “ law,” and says they are mere thoughts, there being 
nothing objective answering to them. That is rather a bold assertion. 
It would be tedious to take up all these points in order to test the 
accuracy of this view, and I will therefore content myself with one. He 
takes the word “ type ” and says that in itself it is nothing ; but I wonder 
what he would say to an able metaphysical book which has been published 
by Dr. M‘Cosh, called Physical Types of Creation. Dr. M‘Cosh proceeds 
throughout on the assumption of actual objective types in nature. His 
whole argument rests upon that assumption from first to last. Then we have 
Biblical types. What is to become of the Judaic economy ? That was a 
system of types. Are they only thoughts in men’s minds ? Are they not 
