134 ^^^ POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



bears the title " Religion as affected by Modern Materialism ; " and its 

 references and general tone make evident the depth of its author's 

 discontent with my previous deliverance at Belfast. I find it difficult 

 to grapple with the exact grounds of this discontent. Indeed, logi- 

 cally considered, the imjjression left ujjon my mind by an essay of 

 great sesthetic merit, containing many passages of exceeding beauty, 

 and many sentiments which none but the pure in heart could utter as 

 they are uttered here, is vague and unsatisfactory the author ap- 

 pears at times so brave and liberal, at times so timid and captious, and 

 at times so imperfectly informed regarding the position he assails. 



At the outset of his address, Mr. Martineau states with some dis- 

 tinctness his " sources of religious faith." They are two " the scru- 

 tiny of Nature " and " the interpretation of sacred books." It would 

 have been a theme worthy of his intelligence to have deduced from 

 these two sources his religion as it stands. But not another word is 

 said about the " sacred books." Having swept with the besom of 

 Science various " books " contemptuously away, he does not define the 

 sacred residue ; much less give u^s the reasons why he deems them 

 sacred. His references to " Nature," on the other hand, are magnifi- 

 cent tirades against Nature, intended, apparently, to show the wholly 

 abominable character of man's antecedents if the theory of evolution 

 be true. Here, also, his mood lacks steadiness. While joyfully 

 accepting, at one place, " the widening space, the deepening vistas of 

 time, the detected marvels of physiological structure, and the rapid 

 filling-in of the missing links in the chain of organic life," he falls, at 

 another, into lamentation and mourning over the very theory which 

 renders " organic life " a " chain." He claims the largest liberality 

 for his sect, and avows its contempt for the dangers of possible dis- 

 covery. But immediately afterward he damages the claim, and ruins 

 all confidence in the avowal. He professes sympathy with modern 

 science, and almost in the same breath he treats, or certainly will be 

 understood to treat, the atomic theory, and the doctrine of the con- 

 servation of energy, as if they were a kind of scientific thimble-riggery. 



His ardor, moreover, renders him inaccurate ; causing him to see 

 discord between scientific men, where nothing but harmony reigns. 

 In his celebrated address to the Congress of German Naturforscher, 

 delivered at Leipsic, three years ago, Du Bois-Reymond speaks thus : 

 " What conceivable connection subsists between definite movements 

 of definite atoms in my brain, on the one hand, and on the other hand 

 such primordial, indefinable, undeniable facts as these : I feel pain or 

 pleasure ; I experience a sweet taste, or smell a rose, or hear an 

 organ, or see something red ? ... It is absolutely and forever in- 

 conceivable that a number of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxy- 

 gen atoms, should be otherwise than indifferent as to their own posi- 

 tion and motion, past, present, or future. It is utterly inconceivable 

 how consciousness should result from their joint action." 



