190 
an commencement du siecle dernier par le dominicain Francisco Ximenes 
cure de Saint Thomas de Chuila. Sa version Espagnole a ete publiee par 
M. Scheltzer ; le texte Quiche, avec une traduction Franchise par l’abbe 
Brasseur de Bourbourg.” Lenormant, Les Origines , p. 472. 
APPENDIX D. 
Sir C. Wyville Thomson, it appeals from a letter of Darwin in “ Nature,” 
Nov. 11th, 1880, “does not understand the principle of natural selection.'’ 
The truth is, that he finds that the facts in his wide sphere of observation are 
against Darwins theory. He says : — 
“ The character of the abyssal fauna refuses to give the least support to 
the theory which refers the evolution of species to extreme variation, guided 
only by natural selection.” 
A discussion ensued, in which the following took part : — The Chairman ; 
the Rev. C. L. Engstrom ; Mr. J. Bateman, F.R.S. ; the Rev. T. Aveling, 
D.D. ; the Rev. T. M. Gorman, M.A. ; and Admiral E. G. Fishbourne, R.N., 
C.B., who said that the earlier part of the paper must be understood as 
showing that, although theoretical science and philosophy might be opposed 
to religion, yet that true science and philosophy were not ; after which 
the author — Mr. J. E. Howard, F.R.S. — remarked, that philosophy was the 
love of wisdom for its own sake. This was a noble attribute of man, but 
one likely to become perverted and misused. There were few things more 
misleading than the desire to know, to know for no good end, or when know- 
ledge would do us no good service. As regards history, as far as we could 
obtain it, it was a corroborative proof of that which we read in Scripture ; 
but we must remember that we were fallible in our use of history. With 
regard to the Divine Being being independent of all laws, God cannot act 
contrary to His own nature, e.g., He cannot lie, but in His upholding power, 
exerted throughout creation, He is subject to no law but His own will. He 
(Mr. Howard) had sought to bring forward evidence to show that man at the 
beginning had an amount of Divine revelation communicated to him. This 
in no way sanctioned the perverted idolatries gradually built up in con- 
nexion with original truths ; the Yedas contained grand and glorious truths 
about Varunah or the Supreme God. The passages were so grand that Pro- 
fessor Max Miiller represented them as almost equal to those in the Bible ; 
but what was the use of denying that these were fragments of an early revela- 
tion, and that they were only good as far as they went ? This did not 
sanction polytheism, or the folly and idolatry of India, and were he an 
Indian missionary he would seek to impress on the people the fact that 
their own writings contained better religious knowledge than they had 
adopted. 
The meeting was then adjourned. 
