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is surely an enormous testimony to its truth. And if a belief in God 
seems, after all, to be most reasonable, surely a belief in the Incarnation 
is so also. 
Rev. F. N. Oxexham. — I should like to refer to one statement in 
Professor Stokes’s paper, and I may add that we ought all to be exceedingly 
thankful to him for that paper. I desire to put a question which I assure 
him I do not put in any invidious spirit. Having spoken of evolution and 
the difficulties in its way, I understood him to ask whether we can conceive 
the immense leap required from the very lowest forms of organisation to the 
highest. I should have thought— and I am here asking for information— that 
no evolutionist would ask us to conceive any such leap. I always 
supposed their theory to be that the immense distance between the two . 
was reached, not by one huge leap but by an infinite number of small pro- 
gressive steps. I should like to make one remark on a question that 
has been asked by the third speaker to-night. It is this, — Why should 
we adopt a new mode of treatment in dealing with the material specu- 
lations which meet us now on scientific subjects ? — why should we be 
more afraid of them, and treat them in a manner different from that in 
which we have treated the speculation of Galileo ? — I would say there is one 
very obvious reason for this. Galileo’s speculation started with the full admis- 
sion that there was a personal Creator, and he merely wished to explain in 
what way this personal Creator had acted with regard to his creatures, whereas 
there are a number of modem so-called scientific theories that have been 
started with the avowed principle that there is no personal Creator, and 
our modern scientific friends seek to give an explanation which shall take 
the place of the Creator : therefore, in dealing with these modern suggestions, 
we have simply to deal with a theory, the object of which is to show how 
we may get rid of the Creator. We are not more afraid of dealing with the 
one set of speculations than with the other. 
Sir Joseph Fayrer, F.R.S. — It has afforded me great pleasure to be here 
and listen to Professor Stokes’s paper. I never heard him to greater 
advantage than this evening,— certainly never with greater pleasure, and I 
think that this Society may congratulate itself very much on the paper which 
he has given us. I do not intend to detain you by any attempt to 
discuss the very important matters that have been brought before you, 
but I wish to say, especially as our Chairman seems to desire that I 
should take part in the proceedings of this evening, how very much pleased I 
am to state how entirely I sympathize with Professor Stokes’s views, and 
how thoroughly I agree in everything that he has said. I may add that 
when such papers are read this Society is really fulfilling the objects for 
which it was designed, and I feel satisfied will do infinitely more good for 
science than where the object of the communication is to criticise and find 
fault with people who, while holding certain peculiar views, hold them 
honestly, and who ought rather to be enlightened and instructed than to 
be denounced. Therefore it is with great pleasure that I have listened to 
