115 



THE 609th ordinary MEETING, 



HELD IN COMMITTEE ROOM B, THE CENTRAL HALL, 

 WESTMINSTER, ON MONDAY, MAY 5th, 1919, 



AT 4.30 P.M. 



LlEUT.-COLONEL GeORGE MacKINLAY IN THE ChAIR. 



The Mnutes of the previous Meeting were read, confirmed and signed. 



The Secretary announced the election of seven Associates : — Mr. J. 

 Harvey, Miss E. A. Everett, the Rev. C. Neill, M.A., M.B., the Rev. 

 Principal Samuel ChadAvick, the Rev. G. H. Johnson, M.A., Mr. Thomas 

 Fox, and Mr. Albert Close. 



The Chairman, in calling cn Professor Langhorne Orchard to read his 

 Paper, reminded his hearers that he was one of the four winners of the 

 Gunning Prize, his subject having be?n "The Attitude of Science 

 towards Miracles," in 1910. 



THE ONE IN THE MANY, AND THE MANY IN THE 

 ONE. By Professor H. Langhorne Orchard, M.A., 

 B.Sc. 



WHEN, introduced into the universe, we look out upon it 

 and then look into it, among our first thoughts is the 

 idea of association and content. We associate Unity 

 with Plurality, Plurality with Unity, and each as contained in 

 the other. We note that our body is one, containing many 

 members ; that the universe is one, containing things and 

 persons, many parts constituting the whole of which each is 

 one part. We note that things and persons possess qualities, 

 many of them possessing one and the same quality, — e.g., stone, 

 iron, wood (under ordinary conditions), have the common 

 quality of solidity ; mercury, water, milk that of fluidity ; all 

 have besides the common quality of weight ; the common 

 quality of gaseity belongs to oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen. Turn- 

 ing our attention to persons, in Plato, St. Paul, Hamilton, we 

 recognise the common quality of philosophy ; in Homer, Virgil, 

 Solomon, Schiller, Milton, Shakespeare, that of poetry ; in 

 Daniel, Pericles, Bismarck, Lord Burleigh, that of statesman- 

 ship ; and so on. 



The one common quality is in the many possessors. If we 



