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cause to effect. You have a voluntary power of self-determination — of pro- 
ducing effects by your own will (which is but another way of saying a power 
of self-determination)— and that lies, as the most essential element, at the 
bottom of the argument from causation, and at that from duty also. Take that 
away, and you can have no conception of duty — all deontology vanishes like a 
dream. Legitimately, the philosophy which depends on the law of causation 
as its first principle, assumed or taken for granted, is the self-same philosophy 
as that which Dr. Irons himself has gone upon throughout the whole of his 
argument. Mr. Holyoake has brought forward the old arguments— argu- 
ments which are very serious, and which have filled many a heart and soul 
with agony — but still the old ones. Mr. Holyoake admits, what I think we 
ought all to feel in regard to the present position of the argument as be- 
tween believers in revelation and those who do not believe, that the point is 
narrowed to a belief in nature or a belief in revelation. Mr. Holyoake does 
not say, “ I am an atheist”; he says, “I cannot find any reason for 
believing in revelation, or believing in anything except nature.” But Mr. 
Holyoake grounds that on an assumption which I believe he himself knows 
must be fatal to his whole superstructure. He is committed to this : he 
does admit that there is some duty and responsibility as between man and 
man. I do not believe, that from a belief in nature alone, there can be inferred 
any duty or responsibility as between man and man. (Hear, hear.) I believe 
the word duty has no sense or meaning upon that ground. You say you can 
appreciate nothing above nature or apart from it — that you know literally 
of nothing beyond humanity and nature, and will stand by that. I can 
quite understand a man standing by that ; but in that case he must give 
up duty. He must give up all talk of honour, except as a mere echo ; he 
must give up all talk of morals, except as a convenience ; he must give up all 
law ; in short, all ethics. All these must go, unless we are prepared to 
believe in something besides nature. Mr. Holyoake shakes his head ; but I 
think as profound men as Mr. Holyoake have come to that conclusion, which 
will stand, whatever else may stand, and whether he or we be right. The 
difficulties he puts forward are very serious and awful ; so serious and so 
awful that, looking at them alone, a man might well be (I had almost said) 
logically justified in not being able to receive the truth of the existence of an 
Almighty Governor. I do not wonder that a man looking at them alone 
should feel and say, “ I cannot accept, — it transcends my powers to believe 
in a Being from everlasting, — a being outside the universe, or if identified 
with it, yet in some sort with a will distinct and apart from that which 
means the mere life and law of the universe — I cannot realize a conception so 
immense, stupendous, terrible, as that of this Will and Being independent 
and apart ! Sir, the reason I am obliged, notwithstanding, to believe 
m a Deity is, because the difficulties on the other side are far more 
immense, far more stupendous. It is difficult, I admit, almost impossible 
to form that conception. But, then, has Mr. Holyoake ever put to him- 
self the difficulties on his own side ? After all, these things come to a 
question of fact — of induction, or of deduction upon the basis of a true 
