and action."

If this be true must not every criticism of that principle rest upon the assumption of its truth?

I conclude in the words of Mill:

"In every case of alleged miracle, a new antecedent is affirmed to exist; a counteracting cause, namely, the volition of a supernatural being. To all, therefore, to whom beings with superhuman power over nature are a vera causa, a miracle is a case of the Law of Universal Causation, not a deviation from it."

Dr. VON GERDTELL, in a considered reply, writes: The Rev. John Tuckwell asserts that "Dr. von Gerdtell's definition of a miracle is inadequate, and of course he did not intend it to be taken as logically and scientifically sufficient," but Mr. Tuckwell gives no proof of his assertion. It has evidently escaped Mr. Tuckwell that I am discussing the actual possibility of miracles not with those who believe in God, but with atheists and agnostics. with the latter on a basis that they recognize.

I can only argue

I think, however, that any declared unbeliever would accept my definition of a miracle, and would reject Mr. Tuckwell's; for he brings the idea of "God" into the discussion, which the unbeliever would summarily reject as an extremely doubtful theological hypothesis. But Mr. Tuckwell's definition of a miracle as "an effect produced in the sphere of the natural by a force in that of the supernatural" would not be sufficient even for a believer in God. According to the Biblical view, which I have fully dealt with in connection with the miracles in a German treatise, all natural events are produced by the direct operation of God. From the Bible point of view, then, the characteristic distinction of the miracle as opposed to the ordinary, regular natural event would be annihilated by Mr. Tuckwell's definition. Mr. Tuckwell's point of view is the scholarly, not the Biblical point of view, when he says, "the miracles of our Lord were the exercise of the Divine freedom to overrule and supersede mere natural law by introduction of the supernatural power." But this is beside the point. The whole question in what relation God stands to the cosmos, and especially to the miracles, has nothing to do with out present subject. I shall deal very fully with this important point in my pamphlet "The Early Christian Miracles at the Bar of Modern Views," which will be published this winter by Morgan and Scott in English.

Professor Orchard touches upon one of the deepest questions of

philosophy, which for lack of space and time we cannot solve here. Professor Orchard-an Englishman-treats the origin of the causal principle in the German manner; whereas I, a German, treat it in the English manner-i.e., Professor Orchard represents rather Kant's view-and I, on the other hand, Hume's view. Nevertheless, I do not identify myself with Hume by any means. In my view the causal principle is not innate in man; the spirit of inquiry only is innate and given to man before any experience. The causal principle, on the other hand, is the scientific decision to which civilized man has gradually worked his way in the course of history as the result of that spirit of inquiry which he has in reality always retained. The spirit of inquiry has exactly the same relation to the causal principle as the innate moral instinct in man has to his later moral maxims. The former is to be found in man before any experience, but the latter is avowed as the principle of his moral life at a later stage, as the result of the moral instinct together with the experience of the individual.

Professor Orchard cannot seriously assert that the properties of radium or wireless telegraphy form an absolute exception to the whole of our scientific experience. Both are rather to be judged in accordance with the principles of chemistry and physics known to us. I have, of course, no intention of placing the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus on the same plane as wireless telegraphy. Radium always has the same properties, and wireless telegraphy always acts when the natural conditions are supplied. On the other hand, no man can supply the natural conditions which would cause every dead body to return to life.

Mr. Leslie forgets that I make a distinction in my statements, as I have already shown in reply to Professor Orchard, between the instinct of inquiry and the principle of causation. Mr. Leslie confuses the two, or wrongly identifies the one with the other. The instinct of inquiry is innate and precedes all experience. It is the assumption of the possibility of knowledge. The instinct of inquiry is a powerful mental impulse that impels us to seek for a cause for every event. The principle of causation, on the other hand, is a methodical principle, which the civilized man has voluntarily accepted as the result of the instinct of inquiry that he has in reality always retained. The principle of causation is the offspring of the instinct of inquiry and of experience. The instinct

of inquiry impels us to seek a cause for all we see. But the belief that everything that happens has a cause is the outcome of experience exalted into a method.

When we read the Biblical scriptures or contemplate the world, our instinct of inquiry impels us to ask, Who is the author of these scriptures? What is the cause of this world? The fact, however, that every document has an author and every work of art a maker, is a commonplace of experience. From this point of view Mr. Leslie's suggestion that I am demolishing the foundation of theism and of Christianity is refuted. I ask, then, in complete logical harmony with these convictions of mine, on the basis of my instinct of inquiry and of my experience, What are the roots of the principle of causation? My instinct of inquiry impels me to ask the question as to the roots of the principle of causation, and all my experience leads me to expect confidently on the ground of the psychic mechanism of the association of ideas that the principle of causation itself has its "roots."

To Mr. Leslie's assertion that, according to my views, the day must be considered to be the cause of the night, my answer is: The night certainly does follow the day regularly, but it precedes the day with equal regularity. By the term "cause "I understand only an event which always follows the cause, and never precedes it. When a chemist makes a new experiment he expects that in accordance with his general experience the experiment will succeed in all future repetitions, as all the previous experiments have done.

Finally, Mr. Leslie asserts that in my view the ancients (Homer, etc.) did not believe in the inviolability of the principle of causation, as they supposed their gods to intervene in the course of nature and history. As a matter of fact, they believed that the supposed miracles were caused, though supernaturally caused.

I assert, therefore, on page 43, only that Homer "knows nothing of an absolutely inviolable natural causation."

Aristotle and Ipicar no doubt did not go so far as to suppose that a field of corn grew up without any cause. But my statements above about them are nevertheless simply historical facts, which we have to accept.

524TH ORDINARY GENERAL MEETING,

HELD (BY KIND PERMISSION) IN THE

LECTURE HALL OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF ARTS, MONDAY, JANUARY 8TH, 1912, AT 4.30 P.M.

THE CHAIR WAS TAKEN BY THE REV. CANON GIRDLESTONE, M.A. The Minutes of the last Meeting were read and confirmed, and the following elections were announced :—

MEMBER.--Walter Henty, Esq.

ASSOCIATES.-The Dowager Lady Pearce and Rev. J. Stuart Holden, M.A.

The CHAIRMAN in introducing the lecturer, the Rev. George Milligan, D.D., Professor of Biblical Criticism at Glasgow University, said: There are two things that are interesting to all housekeepers, one is pottery and the other is paper. Even the children are interested in paper about Christmas time because it so often wraps up their Christmas presents, but very few people know the ancestry of paper or pottery. Now, however, archæological science has fixed its attention on broken pottery and fragments of paper; pottery as old as the days of the Roman Emperors and paper older still. I think when we regard the records of the Palestine Exploration Fund we find that the study of broken pottery is becoming a science, and that there are strata in pottery as in the earth's surface. When you go from pottery to paper you do not find strata, but you find matters of great interest. Two things which we have taken the most interest in in this connexion are the census taken by the old Roman Emperors, and the language in which the old papyri are written. You get there the language of some of the earliest days of Christianity. Dr. Deissmann's enthusiasm has so carried him away that he almost refuses to recognize anything which should be called Hellenistic, because he knows what we call Hellenistic should be called the popular language of the people. After all, however, we cannot forget that Judæo-Greek, which is another name for Hellenistic, means Jewish thought in the Greek language. As Rabbi Duncan said, the

Jews thought in Hebrew but talked in Greek, so that you must interpret their Greek language with the aid of Hebrew. I have the very great pleasure of introducing Dr. Milligan, from Glasgow, Professor of Biblical Criticism in that great City and University, who has come down from his northern regions to give us a little light on this most intricate question.

The following paper was then read by the author :

THE GREEK PAPYRI: with special reference to their value for New Testament study. by the Rev. GEORGE MILLIGAN, D.D.

HE most significant fact in the modern study of the New Testament is the recognition that it has a history, and consequently that its several books can only be fully understood in connexion with their surroundings or the special circumstances that called them forth. Everything, therefore, that throws light on the outward conditions of the New Testament writers is of value. And it is just here that we are in a peculiarly favourable position to-day. In the past, archæological discovery has been mainly concerned with the Old Testament, but now the light it sheds has been extended to the New Testament, and is largely derivable from the immense number of texts on stone, on earthenware, and on papyrus which recent discoveries have brought within our reach.

It is only with the papyrus texts that we are at present concerned, and for their preservation we have to thank the marvellously dry climate of Egypt. The first finds were made at Gizeh as far back as 1778, but it was not until 1877, when several thousands of papyri were unearthed at Crocodilopolis, or Arsinoë, the ancient capital of the Fayûm district, that public interest was fully aroused. The work of exploration was afterwards extended to Tebtunis, Oxyrhynchus, and other likely sites, with the result that we have now thousands of these texts in our hands.

Some were discovered in the ruins of old temples, others in the cartonnage of mummies; but the greater number were found in what were literally the dust or refuse heaps on the outskirts of the towns or villages. The old Egyptians, instead of burning their waste-papers, as is the custom amongst ourselves, were in the habit of tearing them up and throwing them out on these heaps, where, thanks to a covering of desert sand, they have lain in safety all these years.

Of the character of these papyri I shall have something to