" The Institute holds bi-monthly meetings, at which papers are
read on some important topic, and then submitted to criticism and
discussion. These papers, many of which are very elaborate, are
published in the Transactions of the Institute, together with a full
report of the discussions to which they gave rise. Six volumes, replete
with valuable and varied information, have already been published.
Very considerable latitude of opinion is allowed. Hence we find in the
Transactions, papers for and against evolution,--for and against
Darwinism. It would be easy to quote extracts, pertinent to our subject,
more than enough to fill a volume much larger than the present. We must
content ourselves with a few citations from the discussion on a paper in
favor of the credibility of Darwinism,[36] and another in favor of the
doctrine of evolution.[37] In summing up the debates on these two
topics, the chairman, Rev. Walter Mitchell, presented with great
clearness and force his reasons for regarding Darwinism as incredible
and impossible. In his protracted remarks he contrasts the Scriptural
doctrine, that of the Vestiges of Creation, and that of Darwin on the
origin of species. He thus states the doctrine of the Bible on the
subject: "If," he says, "science be another name for real knowledge; if
science be the pursuit of sound wisdom; if science be the pursuit of
truth itself; I say that man has no right to reject anything that is
true because it savors of God.
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