SOI 
And as those nightly tapers disappear 
When day’s bright lord ascends the hemisphere, 
Bo pale grows reason at religion’s sight, 
So dies, and so dissolves in supernatural night. 
Some few, whose lamp shone brighter, have been led 
From cause to cause to Nature’s sacred head, 
And found that one First Principle must be, 
But what, or who, that universal He ; 
Whether some soul encompassing this ball, 
Unmade, unmoved ; yet making, moving all, 
Of various atoms’ interfering dance, 
Leap’d into form, the noble work of chance ; 
Or this great All was from Eternity, 
Not even the Stagyrite himself could see ; 
And Epicurus guess’d as well as he. 
As blindly groped they for a future state, 
As rashly judged of Providence and Fate ; 
But least of all could their endeavours find, 
What most concerned the good of human kind. 
****** 
Thus anxious thoughts in endless circles roll 
Without a centre where to fix the soul ; 
In this wild maze their vain endeavours end, 
How can the less the greater comprehend ? 
Or finite reason reach infinity ? 
For what could fathom God were more thorn He. 
The Chairman (Rev. Preb. Currey, D. D.). — I am sure we all thank Mr. 
Savile for his able paper ; and it will be open for those present to offer 
remarks thereon, after two communications have been read. 
The Honorary Secretary. — The following remarks upon the paper have 
been sent in by Professor Birks, M.A., of Cambridge: — 
“ I have read Mr. Savile’s paper with much interest. The first twenty- 
two pages, which give a summary of heathen cosmogonies, do not call for 
any observation. In the other thirty pages there is much with which I 
agree, and a good deal from which I differ. My remarks will naturally turn 
chiefly on the points of difference. I agree with Mr. Savile — (1) that 
Gen. i. 1, refers to the original act of creation, distinct from the six days’ 
v r ork, which was the preparation of our planet for the abode of man ; (2) that 
a long, undefined period separates the beginning from the first of the six 
days ; (3) that Gen. i. 2, describes not the first state of the earth, but a later 
state, just before the six days began, and probably implies a previous con- 
vulsion, involving general, if not complete, destruction of any precedent 
forms of life ; (4) that this probably answers to the post-tertiary or close of 
the tertiary period ; (5) that each of the six days must be a period of equal or 
nearly equal length ; (6) that man was created last in order, and at a date, 
geologically, very modern and recent. The points on which I differ are 
these : (1) that Mr. Croll’s hypothesis is either proved or provable, or 
probable, which explains the glaciation of the earth by a greater excentricity 
