PROCEEDINGS FOR 1900 XXXVII 
Duke of Argyll has set forth this discord abundantly in his “ Reign of 
Law,” and the fact is notorious. There was in the theologian a deep- 
seated suspicion that the discoveries—rather the theories—of science 
would be found opposed to the doctrines which it was his business to de- 
fend. It was of little use pointing out to him that one truth could not 
contradict another, that science could have no quarrel with any other 
department of knowledge or investigation ; and that any contradiction 
that might seem to arise only demanded further investigation and not 
mutual anathemas. We are familiar with this state of mind; and in 
our own Society it has been dealt with by two of our Presidents, Sir W. 
Dawson and Monsignor Hamel. 
But it is not merely that theology and science have come to a better 
understanding : Science itself is, in recent times, actually coming to the 
aid of theology, and this in a very thorough and far-reaching manner. 
Science is no longer arrayed on the side of materialism or even atheism ; 
it has passed over to spiritualism and theism. 
We cannot altogether wonder at the prejudices and suspicions of the 
theologian. When a scientific man could say of the idea of God, “ I have 
no need of that hypothesis,” he declared war upon the advocates of 
Theism ; and it is not so very long since a school which was essentially 
materialistic was the dominant school of thought in Great Britain. The 
present speaker well remembers a conversation which he had, more than 
forty years ago, with Professor Mansel, the famous Bampton Lecturer 
of 1858, a man whom I may say that, however we may now refuse to 
accept his conclusions in regard to the limits of religious thought, he was 
certainly one of the most powerful intellects ot the Oxford of the nine- 
teenth century. Speaking of some of his contributions to the magazines, 
I asked him why he did not collect them and publish them in a volume. 
His answer was, “ People here in Oxford read nothing in Philosophy 
now but J. S. Mill.” Nearly at the same time the speaker had a conver- 
sation with another leading man at Oxford, now a Professor of Divinity, 
who espoused the side of Mill. With the ardour of comparative youth 
he bruke in, “ Mill is an Atheist.” “He has not said it,” was the reply. 
No! he had not said it ; but, since then, he has said it from the grave, 
in his Autobiography and in his “Three Essays,” published by his step- 
daughter after his death. Mr. Mill in these writings, declares that, at a 
certain period of his life, he became an atheist. I need not here enter 
upon the process by which he arrived at this conclusion. Yet it may be 
useful to notice that even he, towards the end of his life, felt constrained 
to admit that the argument from adaptation was certainly very strong— 
a concession almost savouring of Theism. But we have now long passed 
R Proe:; 1900). c. 
