54 



INTERMEDIATE MEETING, February 19, 1872. 

 The Rev. J. H. Titcomb, M.A., in the Chair. 



The Minutes of the last meeting were read and confirmed, and the follow- 

 ing elections were announced : — 



Members: — AVilliam AVilberforce Baynes, Esq., 48, Moorgate-street, E.G. ; 

 Owen Edwards, Esq., Camden Wood, Chislehurst, S.E. ; James Fal- 

 shaw, Esq., 26, Castle-street, Edinburgh ; Rev. Algernon S. Grenfell, 

 M.A. (Balliol Coll., Oxon), Parkgate, Chester ; John T. Matthews, Esq., 

 The Rookery, Shooter's Hill, Kent ; W. Foster Newi;on, Esq., Bingham 

 House, Richmond, Surrey; Thomas Seaber, Esq., 26, Martin's-lane, 

 E.C. ; G. Shann, Esq., M.D. (Cantab), F.R.C.P., Petergate, York ; Rev. 

 J. R. Wood, M.A., (Principal of) Trinity College, Eastbourne. 



The Rev. J. Robbins, D.D., then read the following paper, which is 

 inserted here in accordance with a special resolution passed by the Council. 



ON FATALISM, by the REV. J. ROBBINS, D.D., ^c. 



I SUPPOSE no one acquainted with the direction of popu- 

 lar opinion in the present day would deny the enormous 

 influence of the Doctrine of Fatalism or necessity. There is a 

 widely-spreading philosophy which, getting rid of the idea of a 

 living God, or at all events of His intervention in the affairs of 

 the world, tends to explain everything by the action of necessity ; 

 and as it denies liberty in God, so does it also deny it in man. 

 In the various manifestations of the human soul it sees only an 

 effect of temperament and race. Thus it explains all religions : 

 one small people, for instance, one only in the ancient world, 

 believed in a God, maintained His essential unity, His moral sove- 

 reignty. It is a question of race, say the Fatalists ; the race was 

 Semitic, and the desert wherein they so long wandered was preg- 

 nant with monotheistic teaching. — Again, on a certain day in the 

 world's history a handful of men left Jerusalem to carry forth to 

 the world the good news of the universal love and favour of God, 

 Quite so, say they; that was only the effect of the fusion of Jewish 



