269 
ORDINARY MEETING, January 21, 1878. 
The Rev. Robinson Thornton, D.D., Vice-President, in the 
Chair. 
The Minutes of the last Meeting were read and confirmed, and the follow- 
ing election was announced : — 
Associate : — G. H. Reid, Esq., New South Wales. 
Also the presentation of the following Works to the Library : — 
“ Proceedings of the Royal Society,” Part 184. From the Society. 
“ Brain and Intellect.” By J. Coutts, Esq. The Author. 
“ Man’s Organic Constitution.” By the same. Ditto. 
The following paper was then read by the author : — 
ME. MATTHEW ARNOLD AND MODERN CULTURE. 
By the Rev. Professor Lias, M.A., St. David’s College, 
Lampeter. 
W E are continually being told that Christianity, to use 
a favourite word with modern society, is “ doomed.” 
It is so utterly at variance, we are informed, with modern 
culture, modern discovery, modern science, modern enlighten- 
ment, that it is impossible that it can do more now than 
drag out the remains of a lingering existence. Expelled 
from among the cultivated and intelligent, it will soon be 
obliged to take refuge with the ignorant and superstitious, 
until the progress of education shall one day sweep the last 
vestiges of it from off the earth. It is true that neither 
modern culture, discovery, science, enlightenment, have 
enabled us to make much progress in the mental, cer- 
tainly not in the theological — I use the word in its strictest 
acceptation — departments of philosophy. The latest dis- 
coveries in this last region are only a progress backward 
about two thousand years. The “ unknown and unknowable,” 
or, as Mr. Arnold prefers to call it, “ the unexplored and 
inexpressible,”* is, after all, only a new name for the 
Supreme Being of Epicurus and of the Gnostics. f The abso- 
lute reign of unchangeable law has been heard of before in 
* Literature and Dogma , p. 58. 
t According to Hippolytus, Basilkles regarded God as pure non-existence 
like Schelling, Hegel, and others. Valentinus’ supreme deity was Bythus ; 
that is, depth “ unexplored and inexpressible,” existing in silence. 
VOL. XII. T 
