174 
ORDINARY MEETING, Apeil 6, 1868. 
Capt. E. G. Fishbouene, R.N., C.B., Hon. Teeasueee, 
IN THE ChAIE. 
The Minutes of the last Meeting were read and confirmed. 
The Secretary, in the absence of the Author, then read the following 
paper : — 
ON THE IMMEDIATE DERIVATION OF PHYSICAL 
SCIENCE FROM THE FIRST GREAT CAUSE. By 
Richaed Laming, Esq., M.R.C.S. 
I F I can show Low, according to human notions of possi- 
bility, matter may have been formed out of nothing, and 
that the laws of matter, as we learn them from practical 
observation, involve the necessity of a superintending intel- 
lect for maintaining them perpetually without change, some- 
thing will have been done towards reconciling the Scriptural 
announcement of a Creator to the minds of philosophers of 
every shade of opinion. And if I further show that the fixed- 
ness of the physical laws, and the uniformity of their operation, 
are compatible with variety in events, the unbeliever in Revela- 
tion will no longer be able to require the praying Christian to 
prove the laws of Nature to be variable, or their operation sub- 
ject to change, as a condition necessary to moral government. 
To do these things is within the reach of human reason ; and 
by a means that will more intimately relate the sciences to one 
another and dissipate much of their complexity. It is, besides, 
of no little import that the argument made use of is at its very 
first step as thoroughly theological as it is natural, — a combina- 
tion which it continues to exhibit for ever afterwards. This two- 
fold character it owes to its foundation on an obvious truth, 
which alone makes it to differ widely from arguments starting 
out from experimental observations about which we must 
always be more or less in doubt. That truth, too, is universal 
in its character; and thus the conclusions deduced from it 
have no limited applicability, but comprehend from the first 
all physical sciences, instead of being restricted to the one 
upon which we may have made an induction from experience. 
All this, however, the argument will better explain for itself, 
