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Now habit is precisely what they were too acute not to know, never could 
effect “ improvements ; ” for by habit you can only go on as you are 
Mr. Row.— Indeed ? 
Mr. Reddie . —Certainly. Of course I know that habits may be broken 
off, but that must come from a new principle, and is the reverse of habit. If 
there were nothing but habituation, men could have no improvement. Then 
Mr. Row, speaking of traditional beliefs, says, people never take up with a 
new philosophy in which they meet with new beliefs or the reverse of the 
traditional ones. But look at spirit-rapping : that is a new thing coming m 
our own time, not inherited, and not from Christianity. Have not some 
people a conviction of that ? Why, some people actually believe they have 
seen Mr. Home flying in the air ! I cannot understand why Mr. Row should 
thus only emphasize traditional beliefs and ignore others, when our every-day 
experience shows us that people are rather prone to take up with new and 
false notions. All bubble companies are supported very much through this 
tendency to ignore experience : people have strong convictions that so and 
so will be a success, however new-fangled, and often chiefly because quite 
new ! But Mr. Row seems to think that the only disposition is to believe as 
our forefathers have believed before us. We know, of course, that there are 
also such traditional beliefs, but I must deny that they are the only ones, or 
even that they always have the greatest influence. I think that m some of 
Mr. Row’s elucidations (put forward in the very best spirit and with the best 
intentions) he has not done justice to Christianity. I am sorry to say that ; 
and I feel sure he will be glad to correct one passage (which may be merely 
obscure), so as to leave no doubt upon it. He says : 
“ It has been frequently urged against Christianity that it contains no new 
discovery in morals. If this can be established, I admit that it is fatal to its 
pretensions as a revelation.” 
Now I must say that I cannot agree with that, and I am sorry that Mr. 
Row makes the concession. Probably Christianity does not make any new 
discovery in morals — certainly the greater part of its morals was not new ; 
but I do not think that that is fatal to its pretensions at all. Christ did not 
come to destroy the law, but to fulfil, and to reinstate what were originally the 
primary moral principles which mankind knew, whether by revelation or by 
intuition. In correcting a laxity in the Mosaic Law as to divorce, you 
remember he says : “ From the beginning it was not so.” And St. Paul says 
virtually the same thing in arguing that “nature itself” teaches us so 
and so. That is actually stated by St. Paul ; he appeals to what nature 
itself teaches ; and our Lord Himself further says “ And why even oj 
yourselves judge ye not what is right ? ” I think, therefore, that it would be 
fatal to say that there was no moral principle in man apart from Christianity, 
because 
Mr. Row. — Do I say so ? 
Mr. Reddie.— Not quite ; but let me finish my sentence. I was going to 
say —because, if so, I do not see to what principles in man the teaching of 
