SKETCH OF PROFESSOR TYNDALL. 



103 



Dr. Livingstone from the appearance of the telegram ? You assumed 

 over and over again the existence of uniformity in Nature. That the 

 newspapers had behaved as they generally do in regard to telegraphic 

 messages ; that the clerks had followed the known laws of the action 

 of clerks ; that electricity had behaved in the cable exactly as it be- 

 haves in the laboratory ; that the actions of Mr. Stanley were related 

 to his motives by the same uniformities that affect the actions of other 

 men ; that Dr. Livingstone's handwriting conformed to the curious 

 rule by which an ordinary man's handwriting may be recognized as 

 having persistent characteristics even at different periods of his life. 

 But you had a right to be much more sure about some of these in- 

 ferences than about others. The law of electricity was known with 

 practical exactness, and the conclusions derived from it were the 

 surest things of all the law about the handwriting, belonging to a 

 portion of physiology which is unconnected with consciousness, was 

 known with less, but still with considerable accuracy. But the laws 

 of human action in which consciousness is concerned are still so far 

 from being completely analyzed and reduced to an exact form, that 

 the inferences which you made by their help were felt to have only a 

 provisional force. It is possible that by-andby, when psychology has 

 made enormous advances and become an exact science, we may be able 

 to give to testimony the sort of weight which we give to the infer- 

 ences of physical science. It will then be possible to conceive a case 

 which will show how completely the whole process of inference 

 depends on our assumption of uniformity. Suppose that testimony, 

 having reached the ideal force I have imagined, were to assert that a 

 certain river runs up-hill? You could infer nothing at all. The arm 

 of inference would be paralyzed, and the sword of truth broken in its 

 grasp ; and reason could only sit down and wait until recovery re- 

 stored her limb, and further experience gave her new weapons. Ad' 

 vance Sheets from Macmillan. 



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SKETCH OF PEOFESSOE TYNDALL. 



THE Tyndall or Tyndale family emerged into history about the 

 same time as the American Continent. The first of whom we 

 hear was William Tyndale, a contemporary of Columbus, and who was 

 just of age when this country was discovered. It was the epoch of 

 intellectual awakening in Europe, and the impulse was felt equally in 

 geographical exploration and in religious reform. Tyndale took to 

 the latter, and translated the Bible into English for the people. But 

 he found worse navigation on the theological sea than Columbus en- 



