there may be errors in translation or transcription, and modes of expression unusual to us as moderns reading the oldest book in the world. What we wish to do, by means of the Victoria Institute, is to reduce to some extent the causes of such differences. We wish to get rid of, or at least to lessen, those arising from what we believe to be unwarranted attacks made upon the Bible on scientific grounds; but it is no part of our programme to go into minute questions of Scriptural exegesis, as to the precise meaning of passages about which theologians themselves did not agree. At present I can attempt no more than to allude to a few of the alleged scientific objections to Scripture. Now, although a good deal had been heard from Dr. Colenso and the authors of the Essays and Reviews, besides others, of such objections, I am not aware that any one among these authors had committed himself to the extraordinary statement Mr. Warington gives, that the earth, according to the Scriptures, is "built up with pillars." I should therefore like to know who has ever really said so. I am aware there is a verse in the 75th Psalm to this effect: "The earth is weak and all the inhabiters thereof; I bear up the pillars of it;" but I never heard that any Jew or Christian had deduced from this, either that Scripture taught that the earth was literally supported upon pillars, or that the Psalmist held them up! The text, in fact (as a mere glance at the context would show), relates entirely to the moral government of the world. We all know, of course, of the heathen fable of the earth being borne by Atlas on his back, but Scripture is totally innocent of all such nonsense; while in it we find the expression, that "God hangs the earth upon nothing." Mr. C. W. Goodwin, indeed, in his notorious Essay on the Mosaic Cosmogony, had referred to a verse of Scripture in which he fancied the world was alluded to as fixed, because of the words "the world cannot or shall not be moved." That is found both in the 93rd and 96th Psalms; but it must be remembered that in the 99th Psalm, the words "let the earth be moved" also occur, which passage in the Prayer-book version is translated "be the earth never so unquiet;" and the Hebrew word translated "world" in all these places is tevel (not arets), and obviously refers to the world of people, and not to the earth or the physical world at all.* If rightly interpreted, according to the context and their obvious sense even in English, it would be readily seen that they were allusions to the fixedness or disturbance of the moral laws of the world, and had nothing to do with any physical theories of the earth or cosmos. But there is really no question of interpretation, properly speaking, involved in such simple passages, otherwise

*By reference merely to the English Bible it will be seen, from the heading, that when it was translated, long before these scientific difficulties were invented, the 93rd Psalm was considered as relating to "The majesty, power, and holiness of Christ's kingdom," and not to the physical world. In the 96th Psalm, also, the context is so plain, that no schoolboy ought to mistake its meaning:

"O worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness: fear before Him all the earth.

Say among the heathen, that the Lord reigneth; the world also shall be established that it shall not be moved: He shall judge the people righteously."

they would not come properly within our consideration. When we have criticised and carefully examined the supposed teachings of science, and have shown that the objections to Scripture resting upon them are without foundation, it will be time enough to discuss, if then necessary, the exegetical question. Besides, the statement as to the earth being built up literally with pillars is one which I cannot conceive any man would gravely adopt; and, if not, there is really nothing for us, as a scientific society, to examine with reference to that notion. It is also well known that Mr. Goodwin had committed a great blunder in alluding to the Bible as teaching that the firmament is something fixed and solid. He had overlooked even the marginal reading in our English Bibles, where the word (translated "firmament" in the text) is rendered "expansion." It may also be considered as an interesting fact that Sir Matthew Hale, in his work on The Origin of Mankind (written about 200 years ago), had specially noticed this rendering of the Hebrew word rakia, or rakah, as properly meaning "expansion." Moreover, leaving out everything like critical exegesis or interpretation, we must remember that in another verse of Genesis we have the 66 open firmament of Heaven" spoken of, in which the birds were to fly; and this precludes all idea of anything solid having been intended by the use of the word "firmament." Only the sense of an open expanse (expansionem, as in the Vulgate), is consistent with the plain and obvious meaning of the Scripture narrative. The idea of the crystalline spheres was purely heathen, and among them it was a quasi-scientific notion; but it is an idea for which no sanction whatever could be found in the Bible. It is, however, somewhat remarkable that modern science has actually revived this notion. In the latest Blue Book published under the auspices of the late Admiral Fitzroy, there is a quotation from the late Sir John Lubbock, F.R.S., which I beg leave to read. Admiral Fitzroy says:— "Poisson, in his "Treatise on Heat,' assumed the excessive cold of space has a condensing effect on air, causing it to become viscous; and a very eminent mathematician [Sir John Lubbock] lately wrote to me, saying that he inclined to a similar view, if not to a belief in its actual congelation!" "Frozen air around our atmosphere!" exclaims Admiral Fitzroy; so we find here the old and exploded scientific notion of crystalline solid spheres again revived in our day, and not repudiated even by such an authority as the lamented Admiral Fitzroy. There are a series of other questions alluded to in the paper which I do not think could ever come within the investigations of this Society. For instance, the allusion to the serpent and the temptation in Eden. There is really no question as to the present adaptability of the serpent to crawling; and I never heard of any one who held, that for a long period before the fall of Adam, there was a race of serpents who naturally walked and talked. (Laughter.) It was out of the question to think of testing the record of the supernatural state of things in Eden-when God himself is spoken of as "walking in the garden," and talking with man-by any scientific investigation of the things in nature now. But it must be remembered that in the Scriptural story, taking it as it is, there is no warrant for the imagined long periods before man's fall, which have

been mixed up in the paper with this question about the serpent. Besides, the words "upon thy belly shalt thou go" might perhaps be as truly rendered

as upon thy belly thou goest, so dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life," meaning (like the cognate scriptural phrase, "thine enemies shall lick the dust,") that the serpent would ever after be abhorred of mankind, as we know is the fact. But this is rather again matter of exegesis than a question for us to deal with. Then with respect to the hare and the coney: it is not at all certain that these are the animals alluded to in the original Hebrew. Neither is it quite certain that the hare does not chew the cud, though now it would not be classed with the "ruminant animals," according to modern definition, having four stomachs. These nice modern definitions, now recognized, were, of course, not invented when Moses wrote. I remember an analogous circumstance, also, which will illustrate what I mean. In a paper read before the Royal Society a year or two ago, Mr. Flower accused Professor Owen of being ignorant of some nice distinction as to the parts of a monkey's brain, and founded his accusation upon a quotation from a work of the learned Professor upon Zoological classification, where certainly the distinction in question was not noticed. But Professor Owen gave an unanswerable reply to that accusation, by explaining that in a work on Zoology he had not thought it necessary to allude to so minute a particular, and by referring to another work of his, published thirty-seven years before (and from which Mr. Flower had himself quoted), in which the distinction in question was plainly recognized. Now, we could not look for nice distinctions of a technical or scientific kind-and still less for modern distinctionsin the brief allusions to such things in Scripture. There could be no question that the hare would not by us be classed among the "ruminant animals," as now defined. But I am not at all sure that, nevertheless, the hare may not chew the cud. At all events, we are not certain that it is the hare which is alluded to; and this is really a question of exegesis. It had been stated by Mr. Warington that many of the objections, whether scientific or otherwise against Scripture, had been given up

Mr. WARINGTON.—I never stated that any objections of science had been given up; but that particular lines of defence are now no longer adopted.

Mr. REDDIE. That answers my argument just as well. I wish to call attention to the fact that, although the paper purports to deal with "the existing relations between Scripture and Science," it also notices objections, or answers, now given up. But there is one scientific objection, so-called, to which Mr. Warington makes no allusion in his paper, although, only a few years ago, it was, I may say, put forward as the grand and principal scientific objection to the Mosaic Cosmogony. I allude to the nebular theory of Laplace. It is one of those scientific hypotheses with which Mr. Warington is very well acquainted; for, though he may not have adopted it as actually true, he has made full use of it in his well-known Actonian Prize Essay, as at least a probable hypothesis. Its omission from his paper now, is, therefore, the best proof of its having been quite "given up," in his opinion, as a scientific objection to Scripture. Now, according to that theory, the world originally

started from out of a blazing fire-mist. Yet, what could be more absurd than that an intense heat, with which life was totally incompatible, should be made the hypothetical beginning of all life! Some had, no doubt, adopted the nebular hypothesis who were not atheists; and they might have no difficulty in afterwards supposing that life might be, notwithstanding, produced by the Deity. But Laplace himself and others, who excluded God from their thoughts, put this forth as a "natural" origin of the world. Let us, then, contrast this theory with the analogous belief of Christians, that the world would be hereafter destroyed by fire. The one theory begins the world, the other ends it, with fire. But the Christians don't profess to prove this as science. With us it is a matter of faith. We find it revealed in Scripture; and with us it is a perfectly rational belief, as it is based upon faith in the power of God to re-create the world so destroyed. Not so, with the atheistical theory of the origin of the world from fire, and without supernatural power. There is no sense in which that could be adopted by any reasonable being. I think, if we were told who were the authors of some of the extraordinary views brought out in Mr. Warington's paper, it would be of great service for our future discussions. Adverting to the notion derived from Scripture as to the earth being "the centre of the universe, for whose benefit sun, moon and stars were created," I may observe that the late Dr. Whewell, in his essay On the Plurality of Worlds, has argued that, if the earth be not the literal centre of our system on the Copernican hypothesis, it is, at all events, the centre of life and of interest on the Christian theory. But there have been a great many changes in astronomical science since Copernicus wrote. New facts are being every day discovered; and it would be our duty to investigate and see whether our old theories were consistent with this increased knowledge of the facts of Nature. The world offers to us the same wide field for inquiry as it did to Copernicus or Kepler; and the only object we ought to have in view is to arrive at the truth, whether it accords with current theories or not. (Hear, hear.)

DR. GLADSTONE.—As discussion has been invited by the Chairman, I would ask permission to say a few words, not so much upon the paper which has been read as upon the speeches which followed it. As to the paper itself, I may say I agreed with every word of it. I think it is exactly the kind of paper with which the proceedings of the Society should be opened. What we require at the outset is an outline of the present state of the relations between Scripture and Science, which would enable us to understand the nature of the work which was before us, rather than a paper which would attempt to settle the questions upon which issue is taken, and upon which, if we were to discuss them, we should be likely very soon to get at loggerheads. (Hear, hear.) One thing with regard to the paper with which I have been struck is its comprehensiveness; and yet the subject is more comprehensive still. When Mr. Warington was speaking of the various objections advanced against the Scriptures, and the replies which had been given, a great many occurred to me which are not mentioned in the paper. But, of course, Mr. Warington, in grouping together the various objections and answers, was

obliged to omit much. Thus he had touched very lightly on the question of the uniformity of God's mode of action in this world, and the efficacy of prayer. With reference to the suggestion of Mr. Baxter that, on the publication of the paper, Mr. Warington should enter more minutely into the subject, and argue out the various questions to which he referred, it appears to me that it is objectionable, principally on the ground that it is clearly impossible. What did Mr. Baxter want? Was it the answers which the essayist considered satisfactory? If so, I think Mr. Warington would decline to point them out. Was it, then, the answers which the Council might consider satisfactory, or the members? I think that, among the Council, Mr. Baxter would find the representatives of the three great classes of replicants to which Mr. Warington referred; and that, if they undertook to point out the answers which ought to be given to the scientific objections urged against the Scriptures, it would result in an internecine war. My friend, Mr. Reddie, has also expressed a wish that the authors of the several objections and replies should be named. I confess that I rather admired Mr. Warington for having omitted all names. I am afraid we are all too apt in this world to be led by public opinion and the weight of great names; and I think, therefore, that, with respect to the objections to Scripture, and the replies which they had received, it is far better in this Institute to have as little to do with names as possible. I think it is sufficient for us that the objections have been raised; and it will be our duty, without inquiring the names of the authors, to show that they have no solid foundation. Allusion has been made by Mr. Reddie to the Serpent. I am inclined to believe I could convince him that there is a little more written about the Serpent than he seemed to think. While Mr. Reddie was speaking upon the subject there was recalled to my mind a picture which I have at home of a great dragon which walked the earth at first on four feet; a second view of it showed that it had dropped its two front legs; and in a third view it appeared as crawling on its belly along the ground. (Laughter.)

MR. REDDIE.-I should be inclined to ask who was the author of that strange picture.

(Hear.)

DR. GLADSTONE.-He was a man very eminent in science in his time, and he lived about one hundred and fifty years ago. (Hear, hear.) It is not, however, my intention to occupy the meeting with any lengthened remarks. I think it is most important that we should consider all those questions which have been raised by Mr. Warington. I hope to see a still larger scientific element introduced into the Society, and that it may also include within its ranks a large number of men distinguished in theology and literature, who would especially attend to the exegetical part of the work, and to the interpretation of the various passages of Scripture which were supposed to come into collision with the discoveries of Science. I do not look with any doubt as to the result; for I am convinced that the Word of God will continue to show itself impregnable, by withstanding every attack that may be made upon it. (Hear, hear.)

REV. DUNBAR HEATH.-As I am not a member of the Institute, I feel