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bourne with reference to Mr. Brodie’s paper. While I quite agree with 
Captain Fishbourne, that some of the assumed facts in the paper may not be 
regarded as facts by many of us here now —and especially after Professor 
Kirk’s able Discourse upon the history of geology ever since geology became 
part of the science of the world -yet I think Mr. Brodie puts it very 
modestly in his paper, that he is only assuming certain conclusions in the 
meantime, without stating that they are ascertained facts:— his words are, 
“ without stopping to inquire whether the facts on which geologists ra«e 
their hypotheses, have been ascertained with accuracy ; -and I think the 
paper is valuable in this respect, that assuming all those long epochs, and 
assuming even the now extinct “ Azoic ages,” we find that a reverent spirit 
can still extract grounds to support his belief in a Supreme Being o 
Almighty power and wisdom, and yet perceive that man occupies that posi- 
tion to the world, even upon these suppositions, which he also is shown to 
occupy from the leaching of Scripture. Of course, it is always to be preferred 
that arguments should be based upon what are perfectly ascertained fee s 
but I think it must be in aU our recollections, that most of these assume 
facts in Mr. Brodie’s paper, have been taught as the certain facts of geology 
durum the last twenty or thirty years. Some men also, we know, haie 
made use of these same “ facts ” to teach impious doctrines, or to oppose Reve- 
lation. And it is, therefore, of great consequence to find that a gentleman 
like Mr. Brodie, -himself an able geologist, who has written one of the best 
replies to Sir Charles Lyell’s book on the Antiquity of Man, can extrac 
proper notions of the Deity, and of man’s position in the world, from those 
same facts from which others have drawn very different deductions. I come 
now to the more important paper of the evening. I do not quite go with 
Dr Gladstone’s mode of treating the subject of his paper, especially when we 
view it with regard to its title,-" The Mutual Helpfulness of Theology and 
Natural Science.”-I however consider this a fair subject for 'philosophical con- 
sideration, and I cannot agree with Dr. Irons in saying that he one cannot 
derive any benefit from the other. Still, it strikes me that Dr. Gladstone .as he 
in fact himself states in his paper) has not treated the subject of their mutual 
helpfulness, but rather the respective modes of interpreting the two sciences, 
Theology and Natural Science, and drawn analogies between them. Now 
of course, there are analogies, or ought to be, between all kinds of rig 
reasoning ; and if you have not a fact to deal with, you cannot very we 
reason soundly, or at least, to any good purpose. You may assume a hypo- 
thesis, and say that such and such follows ; but this too often results in 
idle speculation.-! must now notice some incidental remarks m the paper, 
although I consider that there is this mistake throughout, that it does no 
quite fulfil its promise; for I do not know in what respect it has shown 
us that science helps theology or theology helps science. In the opening ot 
Dr. Gladstone’s paper, the first thing I find to which I shoidd venture to 
demur, is the almost hopeless view he seems to take of the whole subject, 
says that our “systems of theology and natural science must always : admi 
of correction and enlargement.” Now to me that sounds too like Dilates 
