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particular language, and that does largely affect our responsibility. I think 
I see the position which Dr. Irons assigns to this point in his paper, but I 
should have liked him to have been a little more distinct upon it. There 
are several passages in the paper of which I strongly approve, and which I 
think are exceedingly important. For instance, Dr. Irons says : — 
“ To separate fundamentally the character of the governor and the 
governed is no less than to render impossible all moral correspondence, and 
terminate at once all possible responsibility.” 
That is most important, and I endeavoured to lay down the same point in a 
paper which I read to this Institute on a former occasion. It seems to me 
of the highest possible importance that we should perceive clearly that, unless 
we can conceive clearly of the Governor of the universe as having certain 
moral principles similar to those in man, all responsibility must end. The 
next passage to which I will refer is the extract from Fenelon, and that is 
worthy of our deepest and most attentive consideration, as embodying the 
assertions both of theology and philosophy that the only conception of the 
Deity is a present existence, and nothing beyond it relating either to the past 
or to the future. Dr. Irons, I am glad to say, has virtually attacked many 
prevalent opinions and errors in theology as well as in philosophy. I think 
it is only fair to Dean Mansel to say that he has brought this same point out 
in some degree in his Bampton Lectures, and has shown that if we go on 
cutting off from the Deity first this and then that human affection, we shall not 
at last come down to an abstract reality, but we shall leave the Deity minus 
His perfections, plus something else, viz. the residuum of human affections, 
without getting one single atom nearer the truth by those unhallowed pro- 
ceedings. The common mode of reasoning pursued in philosophy is that 
certain human affections, because they are not perfect and are limited, cannot 
be predicated of the Creator, and we must therefore take them away, leaving 
only the residuum. The question is, what is that residuum ? Dr. Irons has 
begun his first attack on that theory with great propriety, and he 
attacks the whole of that unfortunate system of theology, as well as of 
philosophy, which ends, if fairly and logically carried out, in depriving the 
Creator of all conceivable attributes whatever, and reducing Him to a nullity, 
or involves the plain and unquestionable principles of Pantheism. I attach 
great importance to the attack on those principles, and am glad to see it 
carried to a considerable length in this paper. Then Dr. Irons well describes 
the principles of the Eleatics, saying they would argue — 
“ If the Supreme be Infinite, how can the Infinite have movement 1 ” 
Now a great many of the errors of the present day proceed from the intro- 
duction of ideas taken from mere dead physical nature and applying them to 
the moral nature of man. This is a great point, which should be strongly 
brought out, for it really is the foundation of all the attacks I know of upon 
Eevelation. If that original assumption be strongly and plainly resisted, as it 
can be upon the soundest principles of reason, the whole of the philosophy and 
theology founded upon it falls to the ground. You see the Eleatic philosophy 
speaks here of movement — 
