ORDINARY MEETING, Frsruary 7, 1887. 
Prorrssor G. G. Stoxes, M.A., D.C.L., P.R.S., Presrpenr, 
IN THE CHAIR. 
The Minutes of the last Meeting were read and confirmed, and the 
followimg Elections were announced :—- 
Assocrates :—Rey. J. Hodgson, M.A., F.S.A., F.G.S., Stourbridge ; Rev. 
W. I. Stokes, M.A., Ireland. 
The following Paper was then read by the Author :— 
ON THE BEAUTY OF NATURE. By the Right Hon. 
Epuunp Lorp Grimrsorer, LL.D. Q.C. F.R.A.S. 
AVING been asked to contribute a paper to your T'rans- 
actions this year, I have looked over your subjects since 
the one I wrote in 1884, entitled, “‘ How did the World Make 
Itself? ”? and I find that I shall be repeating nothing that has 
been written since, if I extend the few remarks I then made 
respecting the beauty of nature as a general phenomenon, 
wholly unexplained by any of the spontaneous evolution 
theories ; whether Darwin’s, which started from a few un- 
known primary living creatures; or Mr. Spencer’s, which | 
starts still farther back with what he calls Persistent Force 
as the origin of all things; as to which I will only refer to my 
former paper, and the simultaneous Hdinburgh Review of 
“Spencerian philosophy” in January 1884: to neither of 
which have I seen any answer, except some insignificant 
verbal criticism, which signified that the writers could give 
no real answer. 
When I say that the beauty of nature is wholly un- 
accounted for by those theories, and every materialistic 
theory, I use those words in the strictly scientific sense. It 
is too often forgotten, and always suppressed or ignored by the 
writers of that school, that no scientific theory can be true 
which is clearly incapable of explaining all the phenomena 
which must have the same primary cause, though it appears 
to explain some, and even many, of them ; and no theory of 
automatic cosmogony does even that. In my little 8.P.C.K, 
