ANNUAL MEETING. 



9 



positive and absolute on his side, while the professor of religion 

 has only subjective emotions or theories that are, at any rate, 

 incapable of proof, and therefore it is said that the scientist has 

 all the advantage, and that science is going a long way to blot out 

 religion, or at any rate Christianity, from the face of the eai'th. 

 I deny altogether such a contrast, or the right to make such a 

 •contrast. When we look more closely into the matter, we shall 

 see that the natural scientist and the professor of religion really 

 proceed on much, the same lines — that the scientist has no more 

 absolute and positive basis to go uj)on than the professor of 

 religion — that the professor of natural science is as much beholden 

 to faith as is the professor of revealed religion. We have had it 

 ■on the eminent authority of Huxley himself that science advances 

 by steps, and on bases that must be postulated, such as the exist- 

 ence of matter, the universality of the law of causation and the 

 truth for ever of the laws of Natural Science ; these are the 

 postulates of the scientist. These things cannot be demonstrated. 

 Professor Huxley himself acknowledges that these matters cannot 

 be proved, and the scientist cannot any more go on without faith 

 in his postulates, than the Christian can in his postulates of the 

 existence of a God — that that Being is the Author of all things 

 that exist and rules over all existence, and lastly, that He cares 

 for His creatures. These are the postulates of Christianity, and 

 they correspond very closely with the postulates of Natural Science; 

 and seeing that, we find no contrast between the one and the other, 

 but that research in both jjroceeds in the same direction, viz., 

 the inquiry whether acquired knowledge of detail verifies the 

 postulates. We may therefore take it for granted that there is 

 aio superior position or advantage to the man of science over the 

 man of religion, as is commonly imagined. (Applause.) I would 

 like to add that it is too commonly supposed that the discoveries 

 of science, as is stated in this Re250rt, have done away with the 

 basis of religion ; but I want you clearly to understand, as I have 

 110 doubt most of you do, that these discoveries are only so much 

 matter of detail. There is a common impression abroad that the 

 knowledge which we derive from the things of nature is so much 

 knowledge cf the forces which give origin to things — they are 



