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inspection and self-regulation ; the ability to take in by the mental glance 
the whole compass of our conceptions, in their proper order and associations, 
and to govern ourselves at all times, in all things, in accordance with this 
comprehensive view. In this sense, individuals attain Personality only in 
proportion to such self-knowledge and self-government, and the divine 
Being, so far from being incapable of such Personality, is the only Entity in 
whom it perfectly exists. 
“ I therefore fully agree with Mr. Row (sec. 99) in deprecating the use of 
the abstractions — ‘infinite/ ‘absolute/ &c., as applied to this divine Being. 
It is only by analogy that we can speak or think of Him at all ; and this 
analogy we can borrow from no other quarter but our own nature, seeing that 
this nature is incontestably the highest known to us. In cases where men were 
more degenerate, they often represented their Deities under terms borrowed 
from animal superiority ; but in proportion as we are human, we can 
fitly conceive God only in terms of the human : as the Image of God in us 
makes itself clear we can (reciprocally) think God only after the image of 
man. We must conceive Him as the perfect Model of those highest qualities 
which glimmer in us imperfectly ; and this, too, in the order in which these 
qualities unfold themselves. Whence, in successive stages of human 
development the Deity is figured, mainly, at one time as the All-Powerful ; 
at another as the All- Wise ; at another (as the culminating point of the idea) 
as the All-Good. 
“Iam, &c. 
“ Thomas Griffith, Prebendary of St. Paul’s.” 
The Chairman. — It is an exceedingly happy circumstance that Mr. 
Row has brought before us so clearly the tendency of the philosophy of 
Mill, and also that of Strauss. Perhaps Mr. Row has been less successful 
in grappling with Dr. Darwin’s views, and in stating the views of the objectors 
to his theory ; for I do not suppose any one who is acquainted with 
Dr. Darwin would accuse him of intentional atheism or of pantheism. 
What the result of his theory may be is another matter, concerning which I 
have a strong judgment of my own. But I conceive from all I have noticed 
in studying Dr. Darwin, that he has formed his theory independently of the 
question as to whether there was any Supreme God or not, — not taking the 
trouble, if I may so speak, to decide logically that question. He always 
speaks with a kind of reverence of the Almighty ; and in his theory the 
Almighty holds a place which has been objected to by some as being extremely 
illogical ; for he brings in the notion of the Almighty, but it is such an 
Almighty that when we come to consider the idea we find it is not the 
Omnipotent Being of either Christianity, J udaism, or Mahometanism. It is a 
being who, having given rise to, and originated certain creations, seems to have 
lapsed into silence, very much like the Indian Brahm, who finished up by 
producing an egg which shone like ten thousand worlds ; out of which 
egg was produced Brahma, the active intelligence : and that active intelligence 
had to have his works perfected by the Indian Vulcan, who wrought every- 
thing into perfect order. The notion that Darwin brings before us, of 
natural selection, certainly involves a personality always and continually at 
work. That personality many persons suppose to be a divine power ; but 
then it is a strange conception of a divine power that that power should be 
YOL. YTII. Z 
