MODERN SCIENCE AND NATURAL RELIGION. 1338 
recognise a power outside nature which fills them with awe, 
which necessitates worship. Is it possible for such minds 
to ‘worship a mere” non-intelligent power? and can such 
a power “give fulness and tone” to the existence of such 
men ? 
Moreover, the only reason that ‘ personality” is not attri- 
buted to this “ power ” is, that His attributes transcend those 
which our limited experience and consciousness associate with 
personality! An all-embracing Intellect is recognised, an 
all-efficient Power is admitted. Practically, personality is 
acknowledged “ in the Unknown All-Being.” 
The conclusion is, then, that these writers are not what 
ordinary men would call Agnostics, but distinctly and posi- 
tively Theists. 
And modern scientists are in harmony with the students 
of natural religion in bygone times, and tell us that the inar- 
ticulate utterances of all physical things, animate and inani- 
mate, call upon man to worship the Unseen Creator and 
Governor of the world, whom Christians and Jews alike 
recognise as the One and Only Living God. 
The CHairnman (H. Cadman Jones, Hsq.).—I am sure we are 
greatly obliged for Mr. Ashwin’s interesting paper. 
In reply to an inquiry from one of the audience as to in what sense 
he used the expression “natural religion,” the author said :—The 
expression “ natural religion,” generally used by such writers as Paley 
and Butler, is universally understood as representing the highest 
idea the cultured mind of man can form, apart from the testimony 
of Revelation. The conclusion of man’s reason, reasoning from his 
knowledge of the universe, that that universe must have had 
a Creator. I have written this paper because I know, from past 
experience, that there is an enormous sceptical wave passing 
through the minds of men, especially young thinking men, the 
working men in our great manufactories, the working men in our 
great engineering works, and the thoughtful men amongst the 
educated clerks and men of business in our large towns; and J] 
regret to say that, to a great extent, I am convinced that that 
scepticism has been produced by the unjustifiable dogmatism of many 
teachers of religion. I was anxious to bring forward the testimony 
of the great scientists I have quoted, to the effect that they 
all recognise a something which is beyond the compass of 
their minds, underlying that which is subject to their mental 
capacities ; there is a distinct testimony on their part that they 
