538th ORDINAEY GENERAL MEETING, 



HELD IN THE ROOMS OF THE INSTITUTE ON MONDAY, 

 JANUARY 20th, 1913, AT 4.30 p.m. 



Chancellor P. Yernon Smith, LL.D., took the Chair. 



The Minutes of the preceding Meeting were read and signed. 



The Secretary announced that Dr. Eugene Stock and the Rev. L. G. 



Buchanan and the Rev. W. H. Woods, D.D., Litt.D., had been elected as 



Associates. 



The Chairman explained the absence of Mr. Urquhart, who had 

 prepared a paper on " Prediction," and called upon the Secretary to read 

 the paper. 



THE FACT OF PREDICTION. 

 By the Rev. John Urquhart. 



THE question with which I desire to deal is one which 

 seems to me to have peculiar claims to the serious 

 attention of an Institute such as ours. Is it, or is it not, a fact, 

 that events, which were still future, have been foreseen ? 

 There will doubtless be found a ready acquiescence which will 

 confidently and loudly answer " yes " ; many will as surely 

 regard the question as almost beneath contempt. The wise, 

 however, will weigh and sift evidence, and will allow their 

 conclusions to be shaped by facts. 



Cicero in his Divinatio has torn the superstitious beliefs of 

 his times to pieces, " Why need I say more ? " he asks. " Such 

 ideas as these are refuted every day. How many of these 

 Chaldean prophecies do I remember being repeated to Pompey, 

 to Crassus, and to Caesar himself ! according to which not one 

 of these heroes was to die except in old age, m domestic felicity, 

 and in perfect renown ; so that I wonder that any living man 

 can yet believe in these imposters, whose predictions they see 

 falsified daily by facts and results."* 



* XLVII. 



