31 
APPENDIX B. 
Second extract from Dr. Eomney Kobinson’s letter ; — 
“ I have a great dislike to the words ‘ Nature/ and ‘ Nature’s Laws.’ 
The first we got from the Eomans, and I fear that something pagan still 
clings to it. It is too often spoken of in common parlance as a power that 
rules the world. Even a man like Darwin is guilty of an abuse of words 
when he talks of Natural Selection. Selection implies intelligence, will, and 
power of action. Nature possesses none of these, and even Mr. Wallace 
felt the absurdity of the phrase and replaced it by ‘ the survival of the 
fittest.’ Darwin went so far (if my memory does not deceive me) as to say 
that the wonderful eye of the mammal was created or formed by Natural 
Selection out of a streak of pigment possessed by some supposed primordial 
ancestor. He does not say how that ancestor got that streak. 
Nullum numen habes si sit prudentia : Nos te, 
Nos facimus Natura deam, coeloque locamus.* 
“ As to its laws, I would only add that they are no laws at all. Take for 
example the so-called law of gravity ; it is simply an expression of the ob- 
served fact, that masses of matter act on each other at a distance with forces 
proportional to the sum of the masses divided by the square of the distances 
between them. We find that this holds good for terrestrial bodies, for the 
sun and his planets, and a few double stars. But beyond that we can affirm 
nothing except by conjecture. We might call it a law because we believe it 
exists by the decree of a Supreme Lawgiver. But the phrase would be absurd 
in the mouth of an atheist.” 
A. McArthur, Esq., M.P. — I rise to move ‘‘ That our best thanks be 
presented to the Eight Hon. the Lord O’Neill for the Annual Address now 
delivered, and to those who have read papers during the session.” (Loud ap- 
plause.) A very pleasing and a very easily-acquitted duty falls upon me. I am 
requested to move that our best thanks be presented to Lord O’Neill for the 
Annual Address he has just delivered. His Lordship has already received the 
thanks of the meeting, and I am quite sure that all who have heard the paper 
we have listened to will very cordially agree with this motion. I wish 
to express my own very great pleasure and profit at listening to the address, 
and I beg to move the motion that stands in my name. 
Eev. E. Thorntoh, D.D. — After the admirable example of brevit}''. 
which Mr. McArthur has set, I must not detain you many minutes ; but 
still the great satisfaction I feel in regard to the paper we have just listened 
to— and I entirely acquiesce in the feelmg and tone of that paper — leads 
me to trespass upon you for a little longer period than Mr. McArthur has 
done. I am very glad indeed to find that Lord O’Neill has followed the 
sound system which I believe I myself introduced into this Society, of 
fighting the enemy, and of meeting him face to face on his own ground. 
A long time we had to be a little apologetic ; we were obliged to show our 
* In these lines, quoted from the Tenth Satire of Juvenal, the word 
‘ ‘ Natura ” is substituted for “ Fortuna.” 
