68 



REV. A. R. WHATELY, D.D._, ON THE DEMAND 



if they raise our lives to new levels, then the difficulties can 

 wait. If we are patient, we shall be able to do justice to all 

 objections, to accept all needed revision, without dimming our 

 vision of that unutterable Truth which our logic must always 

 serve, but can never compass. " In Thy light shall we see 

 light." 



Discussion. 



The following contribution from the Eev. A. Irving, B.A., D.Sc, 

 was read by the Secretary : — 



The perusal of Dr. Whately's paper has given me intense pleasure. 

 It is a masterly sequel to his book, The Inner Light. It would not 

 be difficult to mention names of many men of European reputation, 

 who have long shaken off the impedimenta of a materialistic " philoso- 

 phy " and have for years seen through the fallacies of Haeckelism, 

 Spencerism, and a good deal of what we may call Huxleyism, because 

 they have worked their way — in the face of difficulties innumerable 

 on the field of objective experience — to the realisation of the fact 

 that (p. 64) " the Eternal has entered time," to furnish the pivot, on 

 which the whole circle of Christian belief turns. I am sure that 

 many, who have done their best to explore the depths and the 

 wealth of the realistic teachings of Nature, and are fully conscious 

 of the wealth of the intellectual ore to be found in that region of 

 thought and research, yet fail to find in the sciences of Nature the 

 answer to the deepest questioning of their spirits. To such. 

 Dr. Whately's paper will be especially welcome. We must, indeed, 

 take seriously (p. 67) the New Testament doctrine, of the self- 

 revelation of God to the individual," through the Ministry of the 

 Spirit, as the Spencerian dogma of " the Unknowable " vanishes like 

 a. spent bubble from our mental vision ; while we recognise that 

 (p. 66) " A Christian philosophy, while availing itself to the full of 

 the work of the great thinkers, must proceed from the heart of the 

 Christian Church, and must be primarily an expression of its 

 experience." 



From these two propositions I venture (I hope with Dr. Whately's 

 consent) to make the simple deduction — that the Sacramental 

 System of the Church Catholic (that is, of " the whole congregation 



