DISCUSSION.

The CHAIRMAN having declared the discussion open:

Lieut. Col. G. MACKINLAY said that all were greatly obliged to the lecturer for his most instructive account of Early Anatolian Christianity. No one who heard of the Mother Goddess, the protectress of the agriculturists of Asia Minor, could fail to be put in mind of Diana of the Ephesians, Acts xix, 28. (Artemis in Greek.)

Might it not be said that the worship of the Virgin Mary had its origin in Asia Minor, and was directly traceable to the adoration of Artemis ?

Professor Sir W. M. RAMSAY replied that it was undoubtedly true that this Virgin worship or Mariolatry was to be found in Asia Minor at a very early date, and, indeed, that it was at an Ephesian Council that it became part of the dogma of the Church. It was interesting to observe that there was too, in Anatolia, a pilgrimage in honour of the Virgin Mother of God which was actually made to an ancient shrine of Artemis the great goddess; and that this pilgrimage continued even after the population had ceased to be definitely Christian. But the doctrine of the OcоTOKOS was more wide-spreading and was, indeed, part of the humanising influence of religion in almost all countries. In the Christian churches its influence was of varying strength. He himself belonged to a church which was as extreme in exclusion of this influence as the Roman Church, on the other hand, in upholding it. But he thought that he could not be justified in condemning it for that reason. In regard to the actual origin of the belief and doctrine he thought that Egypt contended with Anatolia for first place.

Dr. A. T. SCHOFIELD said that it was extremely interesting to note the connection between the church and civic life and to see how definitely the one became a part of the other whether organised for development or defence. He thought that they might observe some connection between the Roman word Curia, the Council of the Roman city, and the Greek Kúpios. He would draw particular attention to the feast of the Curia, a central festival of civic life, and the Lord's Supper, the central festival of the Christian life. It

would be interesting if Professor Ramsay could trace the connection between Roman life and Church life, and especially the remarkable passage in the “ διδάχη, ἡ ἥμερα τὴ κυριάκη τον κυρίον,” the day of the Curia of the Lord.

Professor Sir W. M. RAMSAY said that he took the view that the church communities had been in the habit of looking upon themselves as cities even in the first century. For instance, the letter to the seven churches is the letter to the seven cities. The Christians in Thyatira were looked upon as being the true city of Thyatira. This idea of the Church and the city as one doubtless had a strong and abiding influence on both Eastern and Western Christianity.

Professor LANGHORNE ORCHARD thought Sir W. Ramsay would concur that the worship of the Mother-goddess went back earlier than Ephesus.

This was not the first time they had been given the pleasure of a paper by Sir William, and they hoped it would not be the last. One and all they thanked him. He had led them, as personallyconducted tourists, to far-off Anatolia, and down the centuries to that Byzantine period commonly so little known. The paper especially emphasised two facts; the one was the importance of cultivating in a people the love of liberty, of freedom, the other was that religion is the supreme factor in civic and communal life. According to the purity of the religion and the value attached to it, is the purity and prosperity of the people's life; if the religion decay, that life will decay. It were well to bear this in mind in face of the present conflict of opinion in regard to national education. Education without religion is a maimed and truncated thing. It is worse. To educate the head without educating the heart; to neglect a child's character while fostering his ability; is to train him to be a curse to the country which has shirked its responsibility and has betrayed its trust.

490TH ORDINARY MEETING

MONDAY, JANUARY 18TH, 1909.

DAVID HOWARD, ESQ., D.L., F.C.S., F.I.C. (VICE-PRESIDENT), IN THE CHAIR.

The Minutes of the previous Meeting having been read and confirmed, the following gentlemen were then elected as Associates of the Victoria Institute :

:

The Rev. Hamilton Ashwin, LL.D. (T.C.D.), the Lecture House,
Dedham, Colchester.

The Rev. Edward Godfrey Ashwin, M.A. (Camb.), Rector of
Earl Stonham, Stowmarket, Suffolk.

The following paper was then read by the Author :

SCIENCE AND THE
THE UNSEEN

UNSEEN WORLD.

SCHOFIELD, M.D.

By A. T.

NDER this title I propose very briefly first of all to consider the relative spheres of Science and Revelation, and secondly to pass in review various phenomena dependent on the forces of the unseen world with which we are as yet but little acquainted.

In the first place then, I would say that the very existence and possibility of science, equally with that of the scientific man, postulates God.

The whole of science and its researches in every branch are based upon the hypothesis that nature is intelligible, i.e., has been constructed by mind. If nature were the result of the caprice of an irrational being, such as that of claw marks on a tree, or the scratchings of a cat on a wall, no science would be possible.

All science, truly so called, is a sincere attempt to decipher the handwriting of the Almighty on the Universe, and to discern the design and purpose that may underlie it all; but it proceeds on the belief that the writing is there, and that purpose and design are facts. Design may equally be shown in constructing the

thing (if a natural product) or in inventing a machine to make it (if machine made). In both cases the article is the product of mind and not of a machine, only in the first case it is primarily, and in the second, secondarily produced. So if all nature is intelligible and science reveals plan and order everywhere, a Mind must have produced it, and a Mind great enough to be capable of such a work. This line of argument is doubtless familiar enough to this Institute, but while I do not dwell upon it, it is well to call to mind at the outset that the very existence and possibility of science postulates the existence of God.

Nature necessitates the concept of an omniscient mind; or as Lord Kelvin has put it, "Science, if you think truly, forces to a belief in God."

"There remains," says Herbert Spencer, "the one absolute certainty that we are ever in the presence of an Infinite and Eternal energy from which all things proceed."

Science, however, is limited in its investigations. It is mainly a study of effects. It stops short at first causes as before an impenetrable barrier. Its sphere is the study of what exists, but it knows nothing of the ultimate origin of things.

It seems to me that where science ends there revelation begins. Science ends with the material universe and man, then revelation begins and leads us up to God. Science stops short of first causes, and here revelation lifts the veil and shows the origin of all is Divine. Science and revelation, as has so often been said, can never be truly antagonistic, as their spheres scarcely ever touch. There is no need for a revelation of what we can ourselves discern, and science can discover much that was once thought beyond its powers, There is now a science of the unseen world as well as of the material universe, and Sir Oliver Lodge has written a large book about it.

But however far science may penetrate it can never reach the sphere of revelation. Science may, as we have seen, postulate a God, or at any rate, an omniscient Mind, or first principle, but it can never discern Christianity. And herein, in passing, lies the essential difference between bare Theism. and the Christian faith. The one, in a sense, can almost be realized by science, the other is a revelation from God, or I might say to avoid cavil, professes to be so.

"Earth's crammed with Heaven,

And every common bush aflame with God.
But only those who see-take off their shoes:
The rest sit round and gather blackberries."

But even those who "see" do not see Christianity in the blackberry bush.

Revelation, then, concerns truths that can never be reached by scientific investigation. But this is not necessarily on account of the difficulty of the research, but of the difference between the character and object of the two.

Science may postulate an omniscient Mind, but revelation. reveals a Holy, a Loving, and a Righteous God; and these three characters are still impressed, however faintly, upon His creatures; for without a sense of moral right and wrong (of which science knows nothing) Nelson's immortal signal at Trafalgar, "England expects every man to do his duty," would be without meaning, and indeed, the "homo sapiens" of biology nonexistent. The power of Revelation in the heart of man consists in the fact that it alone gives the answer to all the questionings and dim feelings that arise in his heart and conscience, and thus puts the creature in touch with its Creator. Without both science and revelation no man can be fully developed as a man. With only one, half of him is unenlightened; and if revelation be what is left out, may we not say the greater half. Science may make us "wise as serpents," but revelation alone can make us "harmless as doves."

Many scientists would fain make a further distinction between the two, and say that science is the study of things that can be known and proved, while revelation deals with matters that cannot be known or proved, but are to be believed.

But this distinction on careful investigation will not stand. Revelation, at any rate, everywhere asserts positive knowledge. The language always is "we know." Knowledge is of two sorts, personal and hearsay. The verification of any facts must be personal, and must become a registered result within our own consciousness. It is the ease with which this is accomplished in the facts of science that constitutes one of the strongest testimonies to its truths. It does not merely assert that pure water consists of H,O, and that the union of these two gases in this proportion will inevitably and always produce this fluid, but anyone who cares to make the experiment can do so for himself, and thus change his knowledge of the fact from "hearsay" into "personal"; and this step is everywhere urged by true teachers of science. It is this experimental, or as we call it in medicine, clinical knowledge, which is first-hand knowledge, that is everywhere insisted on in the best schools, and is always of greater value than hearsay or second-hand knowledge from books.