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DR. SILVANUS P. THOMPSON, F.R.S., ON 



rises above all bigotries, scientific as well as religious. For 

 while we need knowledge and insight, just as much do we need 

 reverence : reverence for the truth because it is true, wherever 

 we find it. If in the sole pursuit of truth we tind ourselves 

 called upon as a sacred duty to renounce some things hallowed by 

 usage and pious association, that renunciation must be itself no 

 hasty act, no passing impulse, no wilful breaking away. It 

 must be under the supreme conviction that it is required of our 

 hands. Keturn to the simple faith long overlaid by tradition and 

 sacramentalism may not be easy, but it may be none the less a 

 duty laid upon us. The renunciation with which for most of 

 us the restatement of religion necessarily begins, must be a 

 renunciation not for renunciation's sake, not born of spiritual 

 pride, no truckling to popular pressure, no weak compromise for 

 the sake of intellectual peace. It must be a renunciation made 

 in obedience solely to the dictates of truth, a renunciation ad 

 majorem Dei gloriam. 



Discussion. 



Dr. Walter Kidd. — I have been asked to move a vote of thanks 

 to Professor Silvanus Thompson, thanking him for his kindness in 

 coming this afternoon and putting before us this valuable address ; 

 we recognise the value of the source from which it comes, from one 

 who is well known for his Christian character. You will see how 

 valuable it is for us to have^this address presented to us from such a 

 source. We have all been brought into a high plane of thought, into 

 spiritual regions, and into regions of high science, and we have 

 heard an address which is marked by extreme clearness of thought 

 and loyalty to truth on both sides ; and I could only wish that our 

 President had been able to be present to the end of this address, 

 that he might have expressed the value of evidence as it has been 

 presented to us ; — it is a question of evidence, all through, and the 

 task remaining for us is simply to interpret the evidence. We 

 shall all be set thinking on these lines and be prepared to learn 

 much more. We may be startled to find we have to learn so much. 

 Years ago we thought we knew a great deal more than we do now, 



