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jected, as from Aurora, on the onward path, and it is light 
which holds the heat-rays in combination. For it is impos- 
sible to realize conclusions of the understanding on such 
subjects without having the affections also suitably raised 
towards Him who is the Alpha and Omega, the source of all 
love, as well as of all power. 
The Chairman. — I am sure that our best thanks are due to Mr. Pattisou 
for the valuable paper which he has just read. (Cheers.) We shall now be 
glad to hear any remarks thereon. 
Rev. J. Fisher, D.D. — I regard this paper as one of especial importance, 
I read it with very great interest indeed, and with feelings of the strongest 
approval ; though I might perhaps take exception to a statement made in 
the tenth paragraph, where Mr. Pattison seems to distinguish man from 
nature, but I rather think he does not make the statement as his own, 
but simply adopts it from some other person. Mr. Pattison says in that 
tenth paragraph : — 
“ The ruler required is one higher than the finite— that modern philosophy 
which subordinates man to his environments — i.e. to nature, is confuted by 
the consideration that both nature and man are equally subordinated to 
some higher law.” 
The sum of being, in my estimation, is God and Nature. Man 
belongs to nature, and is comprehended under it, and we cannot possibly 
put him out of nature. The paper speaks of the statements of some great 
scientists as being only hypotheses and assumptions, and I quite agree 
with Mr. Pattison, that the conclusions to which many such come, and 
the statements they make, are in many cases little better than hypotheses 
unproved and assumptions unwarranted. I would scarcely say, perhaps, as 
Mr. Pattison does in his fourteenth paragraph, that the assumptions made 
by Professor Tyndall are “ a trick of advocacy.” 
Mr. David Howard. — I think this paper especially interesting to those 
who are concerned with the handling of science in popular addresses. To 
such people the great temptation is to leave out the limitations. It is more 
pleasant to put the positive than the negative side, and it is quite fair and 
correct to do so to a certain extent. You say what you know, rather than 
what you do not know. But the result is that, undoubtedly, the popular 
apprehension of science is that of a series of absolute truths, absolutely 
proved, and of absolute and infinite application ; and it is very well that 
we should be reminded that this view is not the true one ; for some 
of us, who ought to know better, are not free from the habit of mind which 
leads us to think that our knowledge is infinite, and that the applications 
of the laws we lay down are infinite. Sooner or later the exception which 
