178 THE REV. W. ST. CLAIR TISDALL, M.A., ON ISLAM: 
science, there is a terrible tendency to neglect the very conditions 
of exact science; when we get beyond physical science, in which 
those adyances have been made, instead of the verification of facts 
and theories we too often substitute pure deductions from our 
own ideas for actual facts; and this has been very much the case 
in dealing with foreign religions, and with Islam, perhaps, more 
than any. 
We have pictures of Muhammadanism which are founded, as 
has been truly stated, not on an accurate knowledge either 
of the literary source of Islam, or. even by a study of the 
Koran in the original, but on second or third hand means of 
knowledge eked out by imagination. It is a terrible result of 
civilisation when it turns back upon itself in the path of pro- 
gress to seek something strange and new in the field of imagina- 
tion. It is a feature of our boasted later civilisation, no doubt, 
that because a thing is unknown we turn to it rather than to that 
we have known. 
Undoubtedly it is right to be just to our antagonists, as the 
author of this paper is, but in regard to Islam we have more even 
than mere history to go upon. We may learn of Mulham- 
madanism what is actually found to be its working on those who 
adopt it, and that is a sound basis of knowledge to go upon. 
The following letters from members unable to be present were 
then received : — 
From Sir THEeoporE FKorp :— 
I should not have ventured to make an observation on this 
paper had it not been for the request made that anyone who has 
made the subject of Islam an object of study should, if practicable, 
take part in our customary discussion on papers read to us. The 
more I consider the treatment of the subject by the Rev. W. St. 
Clair Tisdall, the less opportunity I feel there is for discussion. 
The conclusion drawn as to the sources from which Muhammad ~ 
framed his religious system seems one proved almost to demon- 
stration from the authorities cited, strengthened as those are by 
the consideration of the extreme a priori probability of the case ; 
and if I venture to say anything, it is rather in confirmation of - 
the writer’s opinions as to the moral products of islam, than with 
a view to add to, confirm, or detract from the results of the 
historic examination which he has made of the sources and 
character of Islam itself. 
A good many years’ residence in countries where a very large, 
and sometimes major, proportion of the population are followers of 
