105 
ORDINARY MEETING, February 7, 1870. 
The Rey. Walter Mitchell, M.A., Vice-President, in the 
Chair. 
The minutes of the last meeting were read and confirmed. 
The election was announced of the following member : — 
J. N. Goren, Esq., M.A., 6 Stone Buildings, Lincoln’s Inn. 
The Rev. Dr. Thornton then read the following paper : — 
ON TEE NUMERICAL SYSTEM OF THE OLD TESTA- 
MENT. By the Rev. Robinson Thornton, D.D., Head 
Master of Epsom College , VICE-PRES. Viet. Inst. 
I T will appear at first sight a somewhat anomalous proceed- 
ing for a member of this Institute deliberately to argue, 
as I am going to argue, in favour of views held and published 
by one whom we all look upon as the very embodiment of 
Scriptural scepticism — I mean Dr. Colenso. In his too well- 
known Essay on the Pentateuch he devotes page after page to 
the examination of the numbers recorded in that portion of 
the Old Testament, and draws from his criticism the conclu- 
sion that there has been a systematic falsification of those 
numbers, and that consequently every one of the Books in 
which they are found is entirely untrustworthy, and rather to 
be accounted as a clumsy legend than as the Word of God. I 
am about to follow him in his criticism, though not in his con- 
clusions. Such a proceeding seems to need some apology ; 
mine will be this, that I am writing in the interests of that 
Scripture which I criticise. I propose to make my remarks 
entirely independent of what he has written. To analyse and 
comment upon his treatise against the Pentateuch (I prefer 
the preposition I have employed to the milder upon) would be, 
in my opinion, not exactly within our province, as being liable 
to lead us into matters theological. 
2. I cannot help remarking here that there must be some 
ground for his assertions. They are not entirely the creations 
of his own brain, evolved out of his own individual conscious- 
