166 
ORDINARY MEETING, 7th March, 1870. 
The Rey Dr. Robinson Thornton, Vice-President, and 
AFTERWARDS JAMES ReDDIE, ESQ., THE SECRETARY, IN THE 
Chair. 
I was announced that — 
Rev. S. J. Whitmee, Samoa, South Pacific, had been elected a member, 
Rev. H. H. Dugmore, Queen’s Town, Cape of Good Hope, a second class 
associate. 
The following paper was 
apologise for the roughness 
then read by Dr. M‘Cann, who said he wished to 
with which he found he had penned his thoughts. 
A DEMONSTRATION OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
By the Rev. J. M‘Cann, D.D., F.R.S.L., M.V.I. 
M ANY seem to think that the existence of God is a 
plausible but unproved theory, 
and educated men may agree to differ. That of two thmkers 
equally trained, logical, and earnest, one might affirm this 
mode of explaining the phenomena of the universe, and the 
other, with equal honesty, deny it. That 5ia eratence “ be 
problem unsolved and unsolvable, concerning w ic 
content to remain in the region of faith, and abandon all Hmpe 
of entering that of knowledge. The purpose of the following 
paper is to prove the fallacy of all such assumptions by showing 
that we are^no more at liberty to deny His being « » 
to deny any demonstration of Euclid. He would be thought 
unworthy of refutation who should assert that i any two > ang^ 
of a triangle are together greater than two 
would content ourselves by saying, The man is mad, 
matically at least,-and pass on. If it can be shown that we 
affirm the existence of Deity for the very same reasons as we 
affirm the truth of any geometric proposition j if it can De 
