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Governor abundantly suffices for the final solution of all the difficulties which 
we first confessed do lie in the idea of Responsibility.” 
Now, I put forward six different special difficulties, comprehending, as I 
thought, every point that could possibly be raised on principle against what 
I was about to teach, and to that part of my former paper I must refer 
Mr. Row. What he has said about the importance of language as affect- 
ing our responsibility is of course included in that reply, which will be 
found in my former paper. The Supreme Moral Governor, while adjudi- 
cating upon our probation, takes all our circumstances into consideration, 
whether they be of language, birth, colour, education, — whatever they be. 
Everything is provided for ; and the more we reflect upon this, the more we 
feel that there is no necessity for a deeper examination, which must fail, 
because we cannot know all the circumstances of all our fellow-men ; while 
God does know them, and He will be their ultimate Judge. It is far better 
to meet the difficulty by a broad and comprehensive solution of that kind. 
Mr. Reddie has asked me to prove a contradiction. I think I have said in 
my paper some half a dozen times, “ this is a contradiction and I have 
meant by that, that the opposite conclusions to what I have advanced are 
inconceivable. Every demonstration carried to its furthest extent ultimately 
becomes an argumentum ad absurdum, and shows that the opposite conclu- 
sion is a contradiction. Every problem in Euclid is, in point of fact, an 
appeal to our sense that we cannot say the opposite to what is set before us 
without committing an absurdity. If you will fairly weigh the proposition 
which Mr. Reddie has selected for you, I think you will find that you cannot 
conceive the opposite. In my paper I have never said that anything is a 
contradiction, until I have fairly weighed it in my own mind and put the 
opposite thought before myself to see if it could be maintained at all. When 
I have found that that opposite thought could not be put into words, — that 
it was alike intangible and inconceivable, — I thought I was justified in saying 
that it involved a contradiction. Mr. Reddie seems to think that I should have 
done better if I had spoken in detail of the impossibility of evil being eternal; 
but the same thing may be said of that as of universal nothing, or of universal 
unconsciousness. If there had ever been eternal nothing, there never would have 
been this universe. If there had ever been no consciousness, thought never could 
have sprung up, nor any thinking being. It is inconceivable. So if there ever 
had been an eternal, universal evil, all that is good in our hearts and consciences 
and in our lives could never have existed. There could have been no good 
thing to stimulate affection, or to give complacency or joy to any human 
being. Every one who is conscious, who knows what good is, who can feel 
joy and love, must feel that the notion of eternal evil is a contradiction. It 
is upset by a single fact : one good thing in the whole universe is enough to 
give the lie to the theory of eternal evil : it would never have come into 
existence if evil had always been from eternity. Mr. Mitchell supposes 
that I may supply, in my third paper, any defects in the two papers I 
have already read. But I shall have my hands far too full to do that. The 
