MARTINEAU AND MATERIALISM. 133 



because the laboratory is a " study " in which symbols give place to 

 natural facts. The word Mesopotamia is said to have a sacred unction 

 for many minds, and possibly the title of my " Inaugural Dissertation " 

 at Marburg may have an effect of this kind on my right reverend and 

 reverend critics of the new mathematical school. Here accordingly it 

 is : " Die Schraubenfliiche mit geneigter Erzeugungslinie, und die Bedin- 

 gungen des Gleichewichts auf solcheu Schrauben." A little tender- 

 ness may, perhaps, flow toward me, after these words have made it 

 known that I began my narrow scientific life less as an experimentalist 

 than as a mathematician. 



If, as asserted, " the highest mathematical intellects of the Associa- 

 tion disclaim and repudiate the theories of its president," it would be 

 their bounden duty to not rest content with this mere second-hand 

 utterance. They ought to permit the light of life to stream upon us 

 directly from themselves, instead of sending it through the polemo- 

 scope * of Dr. Reichel. But the point of importance to be impressed 

 upon him, and upon those who may be tempted to follow him in his 

 adventurous theories, is, that out of mathematics no salvation for the- 

 ology can possibly come. 



By such reflections I am brought face to face with an essay to 

 which my attention has been directed by several estimable, and in- 

 deed eminent persons, as demanding serious consideration at my 

 hands. I refer with pleasure to the complete accord subsisting be- 

 tween the Rev. James Martineau and myself on certain points of bib- 

 lical cosmogony. " In so far," says Mr. Martineau, " as church belief 

 is still committed to a given cosmogony and natural history of man, 

 it lies open to scientific refutation." And again: "It turns out that 

 with the sun and moon and stars, and in and on the eai'th, before and 

 after the appearance of our race, quite other things have happened 

 than those which the sacred cosmogony recites." Once more: "The 

 whole history of the genesis of things Religion must surrender to the 

 Sciences." Finally, still more emphatically : " In the investigation of 

 the genetic order of things, Theology is an intruder, and must stand 

 aside." This expresses, only in words of fuller pith, the views which I 

 ventured to enunciate in Belfast. "The impregnable position of 

 Science," I tliere say, " may be stated in a few words. We claim, and 

 we shall wrest from Theology, the entire domain of cosmological the- 

 ory." Thus Theology, so far as it is represented by Mr. Martineau, 

 and Science, so far as I understand it, are in absolute harmony here. 



But Mr. Martineau would have just reason to complain of me, if, 

 by partial citation, I left my readers under the impression that the 

 agreement between us is complete. At the opening of the eighty-ninth 

 session of the Manchester New College, London, on October 6, 1874, 

 Mr. Martineau delivered the Address from which I have quoted. It 



' "An oblique perspective glass, for seeing objects not directly before the eyes." Webster. 



