Silliman Memorial Lectures

The Silliman Memorial lectures series has been published by Yale University since 1901. The lectures were established by the University on the foundation of a legacy of $80,000, left in 1883 in memory of Mrs. Hepsa Ely Silliman. Both Benjamin Silliman, the son of Gold Selleck Silliman, and Benjamin Silliman, Jr. had been professors at Yale.

The lectures are designed to illustrate the presence and providence, the wisdom and goodness of God, as manifested in the natural and moral world. The testator's belief was that any orderly presentation of the facts of nature or history contributed to the foundation's purpose more effectively than any attempt to emphasize the elements of doctrine or creed; and he therefore provided that lectures on dogmatic or polemical theology should be excluded from its scope, and that instead the subjects should be selected from the domains of natural science and history, with special prominence given to astronomy, chemistry, geology, and anatomy.