27 
wliat the Society will be properly occupied with. And, con- 
vinced that no real science will be found to be contradictory to 
the revealed Truth of God as set forth in the Holy Scriptures, 
all questions of science about which there may be doubts in 
this re spect or which some may have alleged to be thus at 
issue with the Bible, will especially claim the attention of the 
members. One great means of carrying out this object and 
pursuing such investigations, will be the co-relating, when that 
is possible, the conclusions arrived at in one branch of science 
with those arrived at in another; so also discovering their dis- 
cordance, when the supposed scientific conclusions are at 
1SSUG. 
It would be easy to give instances in detail of such con- 
lctmg- theories and conclusions put forward in the present 
a 7 '.. f* f al f os * ^necessary. Everybody must see and 
admit that contradictory theories cannot both be true ; both 
cannot be regarded as science. Nay, it must further be mani- 
fest, that our _ science ’ of the Cosmos must be discredited and 
not believed m as “ science ” at all, even among the reputedly 
scientific, if they themselves are looking out for still further 
explanations, or are entertaining, putting forward, or quietly 
lstenmg to, ever new theories m existing scientific societies. 
1 may with propriety give one single instance of this kind 
of thing, respecting what has long been regarded as the highest 
science m this country, and indeed in Christendom, for upwards 
of a hundred years at least. I allude to the Copernican 
Astronomy as modified by Kepler, and interpreted by Sir 
Isaac Newtons theory of universal gravitation) I leave out 
ot consideration a subsequent modification of the svstem 
arising from the first Herschel’s notion of Solar Motion 
in Space which after being received by astronomers as 
science, confirmed by all their calculations since 1783, was 
recently assailed as untenable, and shortly afterwards admitted 
by the Astronomer Royal to be now in “ doubt and abeyance ! ” 
1 leave tins out, therefore, of consideration— though it too is a 
notable instance of what was long regarded as a “ scientific 
fact turning out to be a “ mere delusion/’— and wish to speak 
only of conclusions supposed to be established by mathematical 
proof m Newton’s “Pnncipia.” Not only are' all Newton’s 
demonstrations based upon the assumption that the heavenly 
bodies are moving in what is called “free space,” or “spaces 
void of resistance;” but this was the notorious difference in 
the Oosmos, between the rival theories of Newton and Des- 
cartes. When Voltaire came to visit Newton in England, he 
wrote to a friend, that “he had left the world full at Paris— 
(referring to the “ plenum ” of Descartes and Aristotle) but 
