511th OKDINAEY GENERAL MEETINa 



HELD IN THE ROOMS OF THE INSTITUTE ON 



MONDAY, JANUARY 23rd, 1911, at 4.30 p.m. 

 General Halliday (Vice-President), in the Chair. 



The Minutes of the preceding Meeting were read and signed and the 

 following elections of Associates were announced : — 



E. A. Dubois, Esq. ; Mrs. Percy Smith ; The Rev. T. P. Stevens. 



The Chairman introduced Dr. Whately, who then read the following 

 Paper : — 



THE DEMAND FOR A CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHY. 

 By the Rev. A. R. Whately, D.D. 



AT the Church Congress last autumn. Professor Sorley called 

 our attention to a remarkable fact, and — let it be added 

 — crying need. " There does not exist," he said, " at the 

 present time any living systematized body of Christian 

 philosophy." And he went so far as to say that whereas in the 

 realm of activity the present tone of the Christian world is 

 " positive, aggressive, flushed with the confidence of victory, in 

 the realm of thought it is timid, compromising, apologetic, and 

 apologetic in the modern and popular, as well as in the literal, 

 sense."* The reference is not, of course, to popular polemic or 

 exposition, but to those Christian writers who really represent 

 modern thought, and are really sensitive to its spirit. And 

 who shall say that he is not right ? The Christian theologian 

 of to-day, when he preaches and when he directs his efforts and 

 his life on the lines of his creed, treats that creed as a datum, 

 an ultimate, a point of reference and centre of authority that, 

 ideally at least, controls the whole machinery of his mind. But 

 face to face with rival systems and alien currents of thought, 

 his attitude is too often different. It is not that he hesitates ; 

 and if he is open-minded and sympathetic, surely that is all to 



^ The Official Report of the Church Congress, 1910. 



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