The Gifford lectures

"Time as a whole and in its parts bears to Space as a whole and its corresponding parts a relation analogous to the relation of mind to its equivalent bodily or nervous basis; or to put the matter shortly that Time is the mind of Space and Space the body of Time....[We] are examples of a pattern which is universal and is followed not only by things but by Space-Time itself."

Let this be your random quote for the day, from ...

Samuel Alexander, SPACE, TIME AND DEITY (1927).

Like other great books, that one began as a set of Gifford Lectures ... specifically as Glasgow Gifford lectures.

The Gifford lectures were established in 1887 by the will of Adam Gifford, Lord Gifford. The will requires that they "promote and diffuse the study of natural theology in the widest sense of the term."

They are given are four ancient Scottish universities: St. Andrews, Glasgow, Aberdeen and Edinburgh. To be asked to give a Gifford lecture has become in the fullness of time a signal honor for theologians and philosophers.

Gifford/Aberdeen lecturers have included Josiah Royce, Hans Driesch, Gabriel Marcel, Paul Tillich, and Hannah Arendt.

Gifford/St. Andrews lecturers? C. Lloyd Morgan, Emil Bruner, Alfred Ayer, Adolph Grunbaum, Hilary Putnam and Roger Penrose have all carried that torch.

Gifford/ Edinburgh? This blog's guiding spirit, William James, was one of the first of these. Later -- Henri Bergson, Arthur Eddington, John Dewey, Albert Schweitzer, Cornel West. That is West pictured above.

Ah, who has been left to speak at Glasgow? Aside from Samuel Alexander? Well, there has been Arthur Balfour (twice), Herbert Butterfield, Carl Sagan, Richard Dawkins, Simon Blackburn.

As you might gather from these brief lists, one has not had to be a believer in God to receive one of these treasured invites. But, as one might imagine from the terms of the will, it generally seems to help.

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