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started from out of a blazing fire-mist. Yet, what could be more absurd 
than that an intense heat, with which life was totally incompatible, should 
be made the hypothetical beginning of all life! Some had, no doubt, 
adopted the nebular hypothesis who were not atheists ; and they might have 
no difficulty in afterwards supposing that life might be, notwithstanding, 
produced by the Deity. But Laplace himself and others, who excluded God 
from their thoughts, put this forth as a “ natural ” origin of the world. Let us, 
then, contrast this theory with the analogous belief of Christians, that the 
world would be hereafter destroyed by fire. The one theory begins the 
world, the other ends it, with fire. But the Christians don’t profess to 
prove this as science. With us it is a matter of faith. We find it revealed 
in Scripture ; and with us it is a perfectly rational belief, as it is based upon 
faith in the power of God to re-create the world so destroyed. Not so, with 
the atheistical theory of the origin of the world from fire, and without super- 
natural power. There is no sense in which that could be adopted by any 
reasonable being. I think, if we were told who were the authors of some of 
the extraordinary views brought out in Mr. Warington’s paper, it would be 
of great service for our future discussions. Adverting' to the notion derived 
from Scripture as to the earth being “the centre of the universe, for whose 
benefit sun, moon and stars were created,” I may observe that the late 
Dr. Whewell, in his essay On the Plurality of Worlds, has argued that, if 
the earth be not the literal centre of our system on the Copemican hypothesis, 
it is, at all events, the centre of life and of interest on the Christian 
theory. But there have been a great many changes in astronomical science 
since Copernicus wrote. New facts are being every day discovered ; and it 
would be our duty to investigate and see whether our old theories were 
consistent with this increased knowledge of the facts of Nature. The world 
offers to us the same wide field for inquiry as it did to Copernicus or 
Kepler; and 'the only object we ought to have in view is to arrive at the 
truth, whether it accords with current theories or not. (Hear, hear.) ' 
Dr. Gladstone. — As discussion has been invited by the Chairman, I would 
ask permission to say a few words, not so much upon the paper which has 
been read as upon the speeches which followed it. As to the paper itself, I 
may say I agreed with every word of it. I think it is exactly the kind of 
paper with which the proceedings of 1 the Society should be opened. What 
we require at the outset is an outline of the present state of the relations 
between Scripture and Science, which would enable us to understand the 
nature of the work which was before us, rather than a paper which would 
attempt to settle the questions upon which issue is taken, and upon which, if 
we were to discuss them, w T e should be likely very soon to get at loggerheads. 
(Hear, hear.) One thing with regard to the paper with which I have been 
struck is its comprehensiveness ; and yet the subject is more comprehensive 
still. When Mr. Warington was speaking of the various objections ad- 
vanced against the Scriptures, and the replies which had been given, a great 
many occurred to me which are not mentioned in the paper. But, of course, 
Mr. Warington, in grouping together the various objections and answers, was 
