69 
but the following passage shows what Professor Kirk really meant. He 
says 
“ The moment any one speaks of true force, he leaves the strictly material, 
which may be seen, and turns, not his eyes, but his reason, to another province 
of being.” 
That, I think, shows that Professor Kirk does not mean to deny the absolute 
existence of these things, but he denies their existence, independent of 
any effort whatever on the part of the Creator and of the creature. Now 
I do not quite agree with Mr. Poyer in thinking that there is such an abstract 
existence as a “ type.” It seems to me to be inconceivable : it is a purp 
creation of the human mind 
Mr. Poyer. — P ardon me : I meant it in the concrete sense ; not in the 
abstract. 
Rev. C. A. How.— Well, whatever sense you meant it in, I cannot believe 
in its existence. 1 agree entirely with Professor Kirk that a type is a mere 
creation of the human mind, and that it exists nowhere else except in the 
Divine thought. As to life, I have already shown that what Professor Kirk 
means is that if you assume there is nothing whatever in existence except 
matter, the only thing you can see of life is motion 
The Chairman. — I am afraid that idea of life does penetrate the whole 
paper ; and I think there is great obscurity in that view. 
Rev. C. A. Row. — I think so too. But what he means is this : that, apart 
from the existence of the mind, looking only to the material thing which his 
opponents take life to be, and supposing one examined it through a micro- 
scope, all one could see with the eye, and apart from the reason, would be 
motion. That is what he means ; but I think it ought to be made a little 
plainer in the paper 
Mr. Redd ie. — I do not think we could have the paper altered, or else all 
your remarks would go for nothing. (Laughter.) 
Rev. Mr. Row. — That would be serious, I admit. (Laughter.) But I 
cannot go with him when he says there is no such thing as a form. There 
is the external form of this table, and I suppose it exists in the table itself, 
external to my mind. But I want now to draw attention to a passage in 
the paper, where Professor Kirk gives an extract from Mr. Darwin. It 
seems to me that the great error of that gentleman is that he has personified 
abstraction : that is his great logical error. I have no desire to controvert 
Mr. Darwin’s facts ; but if naturalists will enter into the domain of meta- 
physics and logic, I have a fair right to grapple with them, for I understand 
it as well as they do. I have carefully looked over the quotation, which 
may be taken as a fair sample of Darwin’s book. It contains a number 
of abstractions. Mr. Darwin says : — 
“ It is interesting to contemplate an entangled bank, clothed with many 
plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the branches, with various insects 
Hitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth, — and to 
reflect that these elaborately constructed forms, so different from each other, 
