238 



THE REV. A. R. WHATELY, M.A., D.D., ON 



means an unfinished product, but I do not think the word is foreign 

 to those who accept a First Cause. God as Creator is a necessity of 

 scientific thought ; but Christianity is a Divine revelation, and must 

 be revealed to the soul by the Spirit of God. 



Eev. A. Graham-Barton : The question arises, "Can you have 

 a Christian Philosophy ? " I question very much, when you have to 

 deal with the authorities of the Christian faith, upon which we 

 very much depend, if you can in any way resort to system or even 

 Creed. I think Philosophy stands out separately from some of the 

 Christian truths, and faith or love are surely over and above the 

 ken of any systematization. They are unthinkable, and to talk of a 

 Philosophy of Christianity is to speak of something which must 

 leave out many great central truths which are properly Christian. 

 With regard to Philosophy, then, what is it but a searching after 

 truth, the sense of reality which you cannot reach simply through 

 Philosophy 1 



Prof. Langhorne Orchard, M.A., B.Sc. : May I be allowed to 

 second the vote of thanks which has been moved to Dr. Whately for 

 his exceptionally suggestive paper 1 The subject is, to my mind, 

 one of the most fascinating that can engage human thought. To 

 myself I confess there is no difficulty in accepting the term " Christian 

 Philosophy." By it I should understand a philosophy which is 

 coloured and permeated by Christianity. I am afraid I cannot 

 quite concur in the definition of Philosophy on page 222. Philosophy 

 is simply thought ; the philosopher thinks about thought. But on 

 the next page, page 223, Geology and Physics are mentioned as 

 distinguished from Philosophy, which is considered as a science ; 

 but surely a man of science has thought, and I should myself 

 prefer to look upon Philosophy as the study of first origins and first 

 principles and causes. Science has to do with those things which 

 are secondary : it investigates the flow and cause of various kinds 

 of thought and of Divine attributes, whereas Philosophy concerns 

 itself rather with the great ocean into which all the rivers of science 

 flow, and which Philosophy itself explains. 



With regard to Paley's argument, I confess that the mere fact 

 that Evolution reduces all the separate cases of design in Nature to 

 one principle does not at all seem to invalidate Paley's argument, 

 but rather to strengthen it. The argument of Paley was directed 



