SCIENTIFIC EESEARCH AND BIBLICAL STUDY. 41 



and " Nakab " may converge occasionally, I feel sure he will find 

 that the words " Kobab " aud " Nakab " do not converge at all. 



Then as to the Canticles, as Dr. Lowy said, nobody knows where 

 the words come from, and a very happy suggestion has been made 

 that Solomon, who is the supposed author of the Canticles, and I 

 am not disposed to give that up yet, had a great number of out- 

 landish wives, and it would be very odd if he had not picked up 

 some of their outlandish expressions ! We are always learning 

 from our wives, and why should not he have learned from them ? 

 Besides provincialisms there are certain foreign words which were 

 introduced, whether from Egypt or other sources, for various 

 things. Ivory, apes, and peacocks are certainly names that are 

 foreign, and are supposed to come from South India. 



Dr. LowT. — Yes. 



Canon Girdle stone. — If so, that is a very interesting point to 

 notice. 



I am glad that Professor Orchard referred to graphite and 

 carbon as marking vegetable probably preceding animal life, as 

 Professor Prestwich says in his book on The Ghennistry of Geology. 



I imagine by automatic action, in the Biblical sense, we mean 

 non-human action ; man may till the earth and plant seed, but 

 man cannot make it germinate or vegetate. It is really the earth 

 doing that work, and one is drawn back finally to the one presiding 

 Being who provides the materials from which the automatic action 

 takes place. 



I feel interested in the challenge that has been put forth upon 

 questions between science and the Bible. Is thei-e anything we 

 really have to give up ? It is because I feel it so strongly, that I 

 plead for a more scientific interpretation of the Bible. I do not 

 feel that the English clergy, for example, devote enough study to 

 the Hebrew technical terms in the Bible. I believe they deserve 

 great study, and that the more they are looked into, the more we 

 shall find there is room left in the record for the final expression 

 of fact. Science has not said its last word, neither has the Bible. 

 As one of the speakers has said, there are many things in the Old 

 and New Testaments, about which we are not clear, but when the 

 last word of the Bible has been spoken, and the last word of 

 science has been spoken, as was said in this room some ten years 

 ago, the two will not only converge, but be in harmony. 

 The meeting was then adjourned. 



