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have nothing whatever to do with religions differences or 
ecclesiastical controversy. Depend upon it that every pole- 
mical word — polemical I mean as regards religion, — that is 
uttered here, will prove a word in our death-warrant. Those 
higher spiritual truths which all of us, in some form or other, 
hold by and maintain, must not be brought up in our dealings 
with those with whom we are doing battle. We must keep 
religious schools and parties entirely out of our papers and our 
discussions, or we shall not be able to do our work in defence 
of Eeligion. 
It is our privilege to hope that hitherto we have been 
doing something : that our Transactions have proved at least 
that there is something to be said on our side, and stayed a 
few waverers from a hasty acceptance of sceptical crudities ; 
and last, not least, that we have shown all schools of thought 
that the firmest attachment to Scripture is not incompatible 
with the truest liberality. 
A vote of thanks was unanimously accorded to the Chairman for his 
Address, and he was requested to allow it to be published in the Journal 
of Transactions. 
In the absence of the Author, the Secretary read the following paper : — • 
ON ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY , IN ITS RELATIONS 
TO SCIENCE AND REVELATION. By the Rev. 
W. W. English, M.A. } Vicar of Great Wollaston. Mem. 
Viet. Inst. 
T HE different branches of science and philosophy are all 
worthy of the closest study. But there seems to be, 
at this present time, somewhat of pride or conceit connected 
with scientific utterances. The theologian may be, and no 
doubt often is, at fault ; but so is the professor of science. 
There are difficulties in seeing a perfect harmony of truths, 
because an acquaintance with truth, in all its branches, if 
attainable at all by any one man, is attained by very few men. 
We accomplish nothing, however, by sneering at one depart- 
ment of study, as metaphysics or theology, and by deifying 
another, as physical science. The vice of the Positivist is one- 
sidedness ; and the Physicist is sometimes seen to be no other 
than a one-sided enthusiast. Men either cannot take in all the 
truth, or they have not the opportunity, or inclination, to 
study it in all its branches. Hence the scientific man is just 
as one-sided as the theologian, whom he is so fond of lecturing 
