PROFESSOR TYNDALUS ADDRESS, 667 



and foster that very disease, and consequent mental ruin, which a 

 wiser appreciation of this mysterious organ w^ould have avoided." 



I can imagine the bishop thoughtful after hearing this argument. 

 He was not the man to allow anger to mingle with the consideration 

 of a point of this kind. After due consideration, and having strength- 

 ened himself by that honest contemplation of the facts which was 

 habitual with him, and which includes the desire to give even adverse 

 facts their due weight, 1 can suppose the bishop to proceed thus: 

 " You will remember that in the ' Analogy of Keligion,' of which you 

 have so kindly spoken, I did not profess to i^rove anything absolutely, 

 and that I over and over again acknowledged and insisted on the small- 

 ness of our knowledge, or rather the depth of our ignorance, as re- 

 gards the whole system of the universe. My object was to show my 

 deistical friends who set forth so eloquently the beauty and benefi- 

 cence of Nature and the Ruler thereof, while they had nothing but 

 scorn for the so-called absurdities of the Christian scheme, that they 

 were in no better condition than we were, and that for every difficulty 

 they found upon our side, quite as great a difficulty was to be found 

 on theirs. I will now, with your permission, adopt a similar line of 

 argument. You are a Lucretian, and from the combination and sep- 

 aration of atoms deduce all terrestrial things, including organic forms 

 and their phenomena. Let me tell you in the first instance how far 1 

 am prepared to go with you. I admit that you can build crystalline 

 forms out of this play of molecular force ; that the diamond, amethyst, 

 and snow-star, are truly wonderful structures which are thus produced. 

 I will go further and acknowledge that even a tree or flow^er might in 

 this way be organized. Nay, if you can show me an animal wdthout 

 sensation, I will concede to you that it also might be put together by 

 the suitable play of molecular force. 



" Thus far our way is clear, but now comes my difficulty. Your 

 atoms are individually without sensation, much more are they without 

 intelligence. May I ask you, then, to try your hand upon this prob- 

 lem ? Take your dead hydrogen-atoms, your dead oxygen-atoms, your 

 dead carbon-atoms, your dead nitrogen-atoms, your dead phosphorus- 

 atoms, and all the other atoms, dead as grains of shot, of which the 

 brain is formed. Imagine them separate and sensationless ; observe 

 them running together and forming all imaginable combinations. 

 This, as a purely mechanical process, is seeahle by the mind. But can 

 you see, or dream, or in any w^ay imagine, how out of that mechanical 

 act, and from these individually dead atoms, sensation, thought, and 

 emotion, are to arise ? You speak of the difficulty of presentation in 

 my case ; is it less in yours ? I am not all bereft of this Vorstellungs- 

 hraft of which you speak. I can follow a particle of musk until it 

 reaches the olfactory nerve ; I can follow the waves of sound until 

 their tremors reach the water of the labyrinth, and set the otoliths 

 and Corti's fibres in motion ; I can also visualize the waves of ether 



