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ORDINARY MEETING.* 
THE PRESIDENT, SIR G. GABRIEL STOKES, BarT., M.P., P.R.S., 
IN THE CHAIR. 
The Minutes of the last Meeting were read and confirmed. 
The following paper was then read by the Author :— 
RHE eSCLENCE OF -RECTITUDE AS” DISTINCT 
FROM EXPEDIENCE. By the Rev. H. J. CLARKE, 
Vicar of Great Barr, Birmingham. 
OWEVER fruitless may be the attempt to imagine a 
H system of Ethics in which it shall be found possible 
to dispense with the categories severally represented by the 
terms Right and Wrong, yet, if it can be shown that the 
question, “What is right?” ultimately resolves itself ito 
“ What is expedient?” and that, except as meaning this, it 
has no meaning at all relatively to fundamental principles, 
then of course there can be no Science of Rectitude as dis- 
tinct from expedience. Practically, the supposition I am 
making is that, so long as we remain on the low level of a 
vulgar and conventional morality, we are liable to be 
troubled with reasonings in which we seem to hear a still 
small voice within, and are conscious of the presence of a 
monitor who persists in preaching about duty, but that 
having once succeeded in reaching in our emotions the stand- 
point of science, we find ourselves free to determine our 
* April 21, 1890. 
+ Author of The Fundamental Science, ete. 
