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lighter with cold, because that philosopher was Professor Whewell. We 
have heard something of the “ semi-scientific lectures of the Victoria Insti- 
tute,” and of “ so-called scientific men ; ” but when we refer to Whewell we 
know he is acknowledged as one of the European lights of science, and an 
undoubted scientific man — eminent in science, as a theologian, and also as 
a metaphysician — one of the greatest geniuses in Europe. If he could see 
design, the members of the Victoria Institute may be glad to follow such a 
leader in such a matter. The operations of this Institute have had one effect : 
we used to hear that such and such things were held by men of science, and 
instead of argument we had assertion ; well, we came forward to challenge 
these assertions. The leaders of popular infidelity have been welcome here, and 
they have expressed in their own productions not only the courtesy, but the 
fairness with which they were met. We court truth and inquiry, but we 
may be permitted to have a current conviction, from long experience, and 
from extensive reading, — an address like that which we have heard to-night 
could not have been given without great reading and thought, — that what 
we are professing is indeed the truth ; that man is something more than a 
reformed brute,* and that there is something higher and better than this pre- 
sent life to look forward to. We feel that an honest attempt to support the 
truth will ever be joined in, by those who meet here, and when we oppose the 
so-called theories and hypotheses of science, we are not only doing that which 
is necessary for our own health, and our own mutual system and spiritual 
life, but that which is absolutely necessary to prevent science being 
degraded from its true purpose, and carrying out the system of Bacon and 
Newton. 
[The Annual Meeting being concluded, the Members, Associates, and 
their friends assembled in the Museum of the Society of Arts, where refresh- 
ments were served.] 
* It is somewhat noteworthy that Professor Rutherford, MJX, F.R.S,, 
when lecturing at the Royal Institution, on the 19th of May, 1874, con- 
cluded a remarkable paper “ On the brain — its formation and. powers, ’ by 
commenting on the immense difficulty of the physiology of the nervous 
system, the small extent of our knowledge respecting the mystery of the 
connection between body and soul, and the advantages which result from 
an acceptance of the truths of Revelation, however incomprehensible to 
us in our present state. — [E d,] 
