THE ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING OF THE INSTITUTE 
WAS HELD IN THE ROOMS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY 
OX WEDNESDAY, JULY 15th, 190S. 
The Right Hon. The Earl of Halsbury, D.C.L., F.R.S., 
President, in the Chair, 
When the following Address was delivered by Mr. E. Walter 
Maunder, E.R.A.S., of Greenwich Observatory. 
THE BIBLE AND ASTRONOMY. 
I MAKE no apology for the subject which I have chosen tor 
this afternoon’s Address. It comes directly under the first 
of the three primary objects for which your Society was founded 
— to investigate fully and impartially the most important 
questions of philosophy and science, but more especially those 
which bear upon the great truths revealed in Holy Scripture.” 
My effort this afternoon, therefore, is to ascertain whether Holy 
Scripture can throw any light upon that particular science in 
which it has been my good fortune to be a labourer, and whether, 
in its turn, that science can throw any light upon Holy Scrip- 
ture. In brief, What has the Bible to say respecting astronomy, 
and what has astronomy to say respecting the Bible ? 
A few centuries ago no one would have hesitated as to the 
answer which should be given to the first of these two questions. 
It was then thought that the Bible had everything to tell us, 
not only about astronomy, but about all the other sciences. It 
was the universal textbook. More important still, it was the 
infallible textbook. Every statement made in it was not only 
correct colloquially, but was scientifically accurate. The true 
way of attaining further light upon some question ol physical 
research was, not to make experiments and observations on the 
object itself, but to enquire more searchingly into the rigorous 
meaning of the original words used in Scripture. 
This idea of the function of Holy Scripture was, it seems to 
me, an unreasonable one. God has endowed us with our 
intellectual faculties, and we know of but one way in which 
they can be developed and improved, namely, by their exercise. 
If it had been His purpose to give us in Holy Scripture direct 
instruction on astronomy, geology and the like, what effect 
could this have had but the retardation of man’s intellectual 
growth ? We know that the schoolmaster who can train his 
pupil to find something out for himself has done far better for 
him, has educated him better than if he had merely told him 
B 
