all our legitimate desires after the mystery of life in the 
words, — f<r The Lord God formed man out of the dust of the 
ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.” 
The Chairman (Mr. H. Cadman Jones). — I have now to return the 
thanks of the meeting to Archdeacon Bardsley for his admirable paper, and 
to Mr. Callard for so kindly reading it. I am sorry to begin by adverse 
criticism, but I must own that it takes a little too much of a theological 
turn. It is the object of this Society to see whether science does not 
really harmonise with, instead of conflict with, anything the Bible says ; 
but, in entering on this investigation, it is necessary to be very accurate 
in laying down what the Bible really does say on any scientific question. 
The old instance of the case of Galileo is so familiar to all that one need 
hardly cite it. It was considered that his teaching contradicted the 
Scriptures, but there is not a person in this room who would not agree with 
me in saying that, in spite of all the decrees of the Pope and Reverend 
Fathers, the earth does move. I should be glad if any one whose studies have 
lain in that direction would say something about the discrepancies in the 
Hebrew and the Septuagint chronology, and as to how far we may consider 
the Scriptures really furnish materials for laying down a complete system of 
dates. The writer of this paper evidently appears to think the Scriptures 
do ; that there is a difference between the periods which must be allowed 
according to the different modes of computation of dates; but still materials 
are furnished which do give some limits with regard to the period that can 
be allowed between Adam and the Deluge. It is very desirable that some- 
thing should be said on this subject, because what takes place in our 
meetings here goes out to the world, and I think mischief may be done if 
it should go forth uncontradicted that the Scriptures make statements 
which, it may turn out on investigation, are not necessarily meant by them. 
Perhaps, also, for popular readers it might be desirable that we should 
have rather fuller information on the subject of Max Muller’s argument, 
as referred to on page 261, because I think that those who have any 
acquaintance with comparative philology, which I myself have not, would 
find a difficulty in discovering that some of the words there alluded to are 
identical in all European languages. I myself plead ignorance on the 
subject, but it certainly does not occur to me that the word “tree” can, 
by any analogy, be the same as the Latin word for “ tree,” which is a word 
in another Indo-European language. Again, I do not see what analogy there 
is between the word “ dog ” and the Latin “ canis ,” and so on in many 
other cases. I think that when statements of this kind are going out, 
although based upon the authority of Professor Max Muller, in a work 
intended to be perused by the general public, it would be but proper that 
there should be some kind of explanation to show that they are well founded. 
Prof. S. E. O’Dell. — So far as I can perceive, I do not think that the 
Scripture references could have been evaded. It seems to me that they 
