98 
ORDINARY MEETING, February 5, 1883. 
Rev. R. Thornton, D.D., Vice-President, in the Chair. 
The Minutes of the last Meeting were read and confirmed, and the follow- 
ing elections were announced : — 
Members : — W. G. Ainslie, Esq., London ; Rev. A. Thursby-Pelham, M.A., 
Shrewsbury ; Lieut. -Col. W. Larkins Walker, Brighton. 
Associates : — The Right Rev. the Bishop of Bathurst, New South Wales ; 
J. Maitland Anders m, Esq., St. Andrews ; Rev. A. R. Blackett, M.A., 
New South Wales; Rev. C. Ray Palmer, M.A., United States. 
Also the presentation of the following Works for the Library : — 
“ Proceedings of the Royal Society.” From the same. 
“ Proceedings of the United Service Institution.” From the same. 
“ Proceedings of the Canadian Institute.” From the same. 
“ Proceedings of the American Bureau of Ethnology.” From the same. 
“ The American Antiquarian.” From the Fditor. 
“ The Remote Antiquity of Man.” From the Author. 
The following Paper was then read by the Author : — 
IS IT POSSIBLE TO KNOW GOD? (CONSIDERA- 
TIONS ON “THE UNKNOWN AND UNKNOW- 
ABLE 33 OF MODERN THOUGHT). By the Rev. J. J. 
Lias, Vicar of St. Edward's, Cambridge. 
I N the last paper which I had the honour of reading before 
the Victoria Institute I was gently censured for quoting 
Dean Mansel's Bampton Lectures as adding any strength to the 
Christian position, although I specially guarded myself against 
being supposed to agree with all that was said therein. This 
set me upon the task of weighing that remarkable contribution 
to apologetic literature, and of ascertaining how much of it 
was really valuable, and how much was justly liable to the 
criticisms so freely lavished upon the volume on its first 
appearance. It appeared to me then, and it appears to me 
now, to be hardly fair to place so learned, and, in many 
respects, so orthodox a divine as Dean Mansel in a kind of 
Index Expur gatorius ; to represent his works as pitch so un- 
mixed that no one could even so much as touch them without 
contracting defilement. There are passages, such as I quoted 
in my last paper, so admirable, so clear, so convincing, that 
they deserve to be written in letters of gold. There are, 
nevertheless, principles laid down in those same lectures of so 
