Sntherm 3-7-28 zub. PREFACE. N an age when things of the mind are asserting a new emphasis— the theoretical and practical being ever more intimately combined in the work of the world-there cannot but be a place of service and influence for such an organization as the Victoria Institute, concerned as it is with the progress of Science and Philosophy as they bear upon the highest interests of mankind. Moreover, in an age when investigators show a tendency to rest content with the more superficial results of thought and research— to the more or less complete disregard of a Great First Cause and a Divine Revelation-there would seem to be a special demand for a Society designed to encourage and promote the profounder adventures of the mind, as expressed in the main Object of the Victoria Institute-in humble faith in One Eternal God, who created all things good, to combat the unbelief which now prevails among all sorts and conditions of men. The papers that go forth in the present Journal of Transactions cover a ground that amply vindicates the claims made for the Victoria Institute. The opening Essay, by Professor J. A. Fleming, the newly elected President, will commend itself as a powerful utterance on a subject which may not be disregarded at the present time. The paper carries an authority which, though thoughtlessly challenged by the sciolist, will not be seriously questioned or ignored by those who lay claim to scholarship in the true sense of the word. The papers that follow make appeal along other lines. In one contribution it is shown that by his very nature man reaches out after God; and in another the argument for Theism derived from design as observed in Nature, is re-stated with telling force. Several papers are concerned with Holy Scripture, in whole or in part whether dealing with archæological investigations or |