TYNDALUS REPLY TO HIS CRITICS. 431 



something more remains : " One thing seems certain," say the memo- 

 rialists, viz., " that if chairs for the physical and natural sciences be 

 not soon founded in the Catholic University, very many young men 

 will have their faith exposed to dangers which the creation of a school 

 of science in the university would defend them from. For our gen- 

 eration of Irish Catholics are writhing under the sense of their infe- 

 riority in science, and are determined that such inferiority shall not 

 long continue ; and so, if scientific training be unattainable at our 

 university, they will seek it at Trinity, or at the Queen's Colleges, 

 in not one of which is there a Catholic professor of science." 



Those who imagined the Catholic University at Kensington to be 

 due to the spontaneous recognition on the part of the Roman hierar- 

 chy of the intellectual needs of the age, will derive enlightenment 

 from this, and still more from what follows ; for the most formidable 

 threat remains. To the picture of Catholic students seceding to Trin- 

 ity and the Queen's Colleges, the memorialists add this darkest stroke 

 of all : " They will, in the solitude of their own homes, unaided by 

 any guiding advice, devour the works of Hackel, Darwin, Huxley, 

 Tyndall, and Lyell ; works innocuous if studied under a professor who 

 would point out the difference between established facts and erroneous 

 inferences, but which are calculated to sap the faith of a solitary stu- 

 dent, deprived of a discriminating judgment to which he could refer 

 for a solution of his difficulties." 



In the light of the knowledge given by this courageous memorial, 

 and of similar knowledge otherwise derived, the recent Catholic mani- 

 festo did not at all strike me as a chuckle over the mistake of a mala- 

 droit adversary, but rather as an evidence of profound uneasiness on 

 the part of the cardinal, the archbishops, and the bishops who signed it. 

 They acted toward it, however, with their accustomed practical wisdom. 

 As one concession to the spirit which it embodied, the Catholic Uni- 

 versity at Kensington was brought forth, apparently as the effect of 

 spontaneous inward force, and not of outward pressure wdiich was 

 rapidly becoming too formidable to be successfully opposed. 



The memorialists point with bitterness to the fact that "the name 

 of no Irish Catholic is known in connection with the physical and 

 natural sciences." But this, they ought to know, is the complaint of 

 free and cultivated minds wherever the priesthood exercises dominant 

 power. Precisely the same complaint has been made with respect to 

 the Catholics of Germany. The great national literature and scien- 

 tific achievements of that country in modern times are almost wholly 

 the work of Protestants ; a vanishingly small fraction of it only being 

 derived from members of the Roman Church, although the number of 

 these in Germany is at least as great as that of the Protestants. " The 

 question arises," says a writer in a German periodical, " what is the 

 cause of a phenomenon so humiliating to the Catholics ? It cannot be 

 referred to want of natural endowment due to climate (for the Prot- 



