MEANING AND HISTORY OF THE LOGOS OF PHILOSOPHY. 269 
The AurHor.—I admit that it has not produced any sensible effect 
upon their conception. No doubt there are scientific men who call 
themselves agnostics, and who do not, perhaps, hesitate to admit 
that they are materialists, or adopt materialistic language. That I 
admit; but I think there is not in it so much of what is called 
scientific thought as there is philosophic thought. 
Mr. Niven.—I thought you implied rather the reverse. 
The AurHor.—I believe Christian thought will transform philo- 
sophic thought and render it fundamentally Christian in the end ; 
but the process is going on slowly. 
Mr. P. V. Surra, LL.M.—Whatever opinion we may have of the 
justice or correctness, or immediate relation of the prophecy with 
which the writer has concluded the paper, we must all feel grateful to 
him for the very able and interesting way in which he has traced the 
difficulty of the idea of the Logos.and the ultimate completion of a 
system of Christian philosophy given us by the writings of St. John. 
He has alluded to the two distinct meanings of the word Logos in 
the original Greek, which are expressed by the epithets evdidberoc 
and zpodopicde; the former meaning corresponding to our word 
reason or intellect, and the latter to speech or utterance. Now, it is 
quite clear that those two meanings are, to a certain extent, distinct. 
On the other hand, they are naturally combined, and are almost 
necessarily united in some way or other in thought. I think 
that natural and necessary union is shown by the mere circum- 
stance that in so clear and precise a language as Greek the same 
word is used with both meanings. At the same time, how- 
ever, I think on the whole we must come to the conclusion 
that in philosophic thought the word is very rarely, if ever, used in 
both senses in an equal degree or intended to express both meanings 
together, or, at any rate, in the same proportion, and I think we 
shall see from a study of Greek philosophy (and this paper has 
shown it) that the Greek philosophers formed their conception of 
Logos almost entirely in connexion with the former meaning— 
viz., the meaning of intelligence or reason, and that they did not 
regard it as involving the idea of utterance, or the revelation of the 
Divine Being. On the other hand, amongst the Jewish writers 
we find this latter idea prevailing to the exclusion of the former. 
“ By the word of Jehovah” (Ixx.,7@ hdyy Tov kupiov), says the Psalmist, 
“were the heavens made, and all the host of them by the breath of 
his mouth”; and again, in the eighteenth chapter of the Book of 
VOL. XXIII. U 
