518TH ORDINARY GENERAL MEETING.

MONDAY, MAY 8TH, 1911, 4.30 P.M.

DAVID HOWARD, ESQ., D.L., IN THE CHAIR.

The Minutes of the previous meeting were read and confirmed.
The following elections of Associates were announced :—

William Weller, Esq.; Bishop Hassé; Dr. H. M. Bishop.

The CHAIRMAN, in introducing Professor Roget, Member of the Institute, to the Meeting, said how cordially the English members welcomed the presence of a foreign Member. So many of the works on science and religion by French-speaking students were held in admiration by Englishmen, and they rejoiced to have one amongst them to-day representing the exquisite clearness of French thought and the French language.

Professor Roget then read his paper on

A LIFE'S CONTRIBUTION TO THE HARMONY OF CHRISTIANITY, PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE.

E

RNEST NAVILLE, an honorary member of this Institute, was born in 1816, and left this world in 1909, being nearer five score than four score years of age. He was the son of François Naville, a pastor descended from the most ancient Geneva stock, and well known in the history of education by his Institute at Vernier. With Father Girard at Fribourg, Madame Necker de Saussure in Geneva, and Fellenberg of Berne, François Naville ranks high among Swiss educational leaders, after Rousseau and Pestalozzi.

In this, as in other lines of thought and kinds of work, Ernest Naville was to follow in the footprints of his father. If such a figure of speech were allowable, we might say of him that while following the parental footprints in every direction they went, he broadened and deepened them.

He was brought up in the country, attended courses of Arts and Divinity in the world-renowned Academy of Calvin, which now, under the style of University of Geneva, throws forth a notable, but lesser light. At that early time he struck the attitude which was to be that of his whole life: that morals

and divinity do in themselves dominate the intellectual and scientific activity of men, and should formally be allowed the supremacy which is theirs intrinsically. To his mind, Geneva, which had been the earthly station of Calvin, and the cradle of Rousseau, was bound by her past to fulfil, in Naville's time, and to the utmost of her power, a mission: that of striking at materialism under its pseudo-philosophic cloak, and of scattering abroad the seeds of civil and religious liberty. For the defence of national liberty, in 1838, he stood clothed in a soldier's uniform. Militant to his very last breath, his motto might well be this modestly-proud phrase of his :

"Et moi je fus aussi sergent en Helvétie."

In fact, he was but little seen, though most widely known, out of his own country. He spent but little time in any European town, except Florence and Paris.

In 1844, he was appointed Professor of the history of philosophy in the Faculty of Arts. Unfortunately, in 1846, the political headship of Geneva passed from the Conservatives to another class, much impregnated with French ideas of a type abhorrent to the ancient church of Geneva, and inconsistent with the ancient forms of the Republic. Naville resigned his ministry in the Church, but continued his activity as an educator, a writer and an orator. He gave at Geneva and Lausanne a series of addresses under the title La vie éternelle, and, in 1860, accepted conditionally an appointment in the Faculty of Divinity in the renovated Academy of Geneva. But, under the new régime, such official posts proved untenable for men of the old way of thinking. He had been dismissed from the chair of philosophy-at the same time that my grandfather François Roget was compelled to vacate that of political history. Now he resigned his connection with the Faculty of Divinity. Yet he continued to teach in an unofficial capacity. He remained Professor Naville for all, and ultimately the disqualification was removed. He was elected an honorary member of the University, when it was realised how many universities and learned societies in Europe had honoured him. His later discourses on Le Père céleste (1863), Le problème du mal (1867), Le Christ (1877), were delivered before audiences of 3,000 men. They were translated into eight languages.

His first large philosophical work consisted in editing the manuscripts of Maine de Biran. He was for twelve years engaged upon this task. The recondite but admirable philosopher of France (1766-1824) was neither an idealist in the

Cartesian sense, nor a sensationalist in the eighteenth century fashion, which agreed well with the spiritual unconcern of Naville for pure rationalism. As an editor of Maine de Biran, Naville completed and improved upon Cousin's contribution to the exposition of his doctrine.

With Naville, metaphysics became a principal but not the principal pursuit. In his mind, metaphysics were, on the one hand, second to the relationship of man to God, and, on the other, he beheld in the sciences a primary object for the exercise of the metaphysical faculty.

From this height he surveyed all sciences. "There can be no contradiction between the particular sciences and philosophy," he writes, " since the results yielded by every particular science are the pabulum of philosophic thought. Such thought would be purposeless that did not formulate its statements in full view of the sum total of the data of experience, observation and experiment." Consequently, he launched upon the world, from 1883, La physique moderne, La logique de l'hypothèse, Les philosophies négatives, and lastly, for the book bears the imprint 1909, Les philosophies affirmatives. For Naville, the principium of the universe is an everlasting spirit, a creative essence free from Determinism-which he condemns in the book, Le libre arbitre. Thus, the philosophy of Naville comes throughout into contact with the mighty doctrine of the Evangelists and Apostles.

He defined philosophy-the share of reason in the search after God. For him, faith and reason could not fairly be considered to oppose each other: a philosophy, and a religion might be mutually exclusive, but religion and philosophy could When once the human mind comes to the conclusion that the traditional data of Christianity offer the best solution of philosophic problems, it must follow that philosophy and religion are in harmony, though distinct.

not.

The dictates of the moral conscience Naville applied also to the attainment of justice in politics. This he held to consist in the representation of ideas-consequently of the parties holding them in political assemblies, but not in governments. He thus became identified with what is called proportional representation or representation of minorities and majorities in proportion to the suffrages polled by each and every party. His proposals found much favour in Switzerland, falling into line as they did with those put forward by my uncle, the historian Amédée Roget, and by Professor Hagenbach-Bischoff, of Bâle. Many imitators and disciples have, in this work too,