122 WALTER AUBREY KIDD, M.D., M.R.C.S., F.Z.S.^ ON 



we come very near the solution of the mystery of creation. Others 

 may feel differently, or perhaps I have not quite taken in what Dr. 

 Kidd meant. 



I remember Professor Jowitt preaching a sermon in Westminster 

 Abbey in which he said, "It is the function of science to do away 

 with the sense of wonder." I do not believe it. I believe the sense 

 of wonder becomes stronger as we see the vastness of creation and 

 the minutise of creation governed by the numerous forces that 

 permeate the whole of creation. But I think the main body of Dr. 

 Kidd's address has been on Purpose, more on Purpose than on Arch- 

 bishop Temple, and we read Purpose into nature because we have 

 Purpose in our own nature. We are always reading ourselves into 

 Purpose. I believe behind your face is the human soul, taking in what 

 I saj', You do not tell me you are human beings ; but I infer it. I 

 read humanity into you ; and so there is something that entitles us 

 to read Deity into God, and amongst the things we thus read into 

 God is Purpose. 



Dr. Kidd has thought out what, to me, is a very important point, 

 that it is not a single cause producing a single effect ; but a combina- 

 tion of many causes producing one effect ; many causes, sometimes 

 far-reaching and leading on to something far ahead. This is what 

 tells us of Divine purpose in creation. 



Some of us may have read Dr. Chalmers' Bridgewater Treatise 

 where he deals with collocation in nature, and shows that the 

 purposes of God can be seen not only in things He does, but in the 

 preparation of material in such places as would call them into action 

 when required for their different purposes. 



Perhaps as we meditate on Purpose we ask more and more, what 

 is, then, the final purpose of a human being *? which it all leads up 

 to. Is it physical, or is it spiritual 1 



Again and again I think Dr. Kidd, in his paper, speaks of the 

 training of the physical as the scaffolding and the mind as a 

 building. There is a great difference between the two. The early 

 Christians discussed whether the oyster made the shell or whether 

 it was the shell that made the oyster. Some still say, now, that the 

 shell makes the oyster. But I think the early Christian writers 

 knew better than that ; they saw there was something which 

 developed certain forces and so brought the oyster into being, the 

 shell acting as the environment. So it is that in a human being 



