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To make it plainer concerning my intention. Religious people, 
as such, have been, and still are constantly twitted with believing 
that which cannot, be comprehended, and which may in some 
instances be opposed to the evidence of our senses, or to the dictates 
of our reason. We are told that we ought to believe nothing 
which cannot stand the test of logic and experiment. Well, so be. 
it, for the purposes of my remarks this evening. I wish to justify 
to some extent our apparent unreasonableness by a retort on our 
opponents after what is known as the tu quoque method, or amongst 
less logical people, the ‘‘ You’re another” style of argument. It is 
not I grant, the most dignified method, but it is often more or less 
effective, and it is justified by the proverb, ‘‘ They who live in glass 
houses should never throw stones.” ; 
Now it might be imagined from the persistence with which the 
attack is made upon so-called religious credulity, that the scientific 
creed is perfectly free from mystery, and that every article in it 
may be readily proved and understood. It will be my endeavour 
to show that such is not the case by any means; that’ in some of 
the scientific theories there is quite as much of mystery, and of 
that which cannot be comprehended as in any article of religious 
belief ; (a) that some of them are as contrary to all experience as 
miracles are said to be; to show also that if Christianity is dog- 
matic, science is equally so, if not in a greater degree; that if a 
too implicit confidence be demanded by authority in Religion, a 
no less implicit reliance on scientific authority is required. (5) 
I'think we have less encouragement to trust to authorities in 
matters of science than we have to trust in religious authority, 
since we find the theories confidently put forward for acceptance 
so frequently breaking down. I may be told that scientific men 
are always ready to acknowledge themselves in the wrong, when 
shown to be so. In the generality of cases I grant it, but their 
failures-do not make them less dogmatic; they immediately put 
forward a new theory, and insist on its acceptance no less strongly 
than before, while for aught we laymen can tell it may fail in a 
similar way. But to hasten to the points more immediately before 
us, let me mention now one or two articles in the creed of science, 
and endeavour to make good my assertion, that whether founded 
in truth or not, they are very difficult of acceptance. 
(a) “The theory of the universe which reduces universal causation to the pullings 
and pushings of thefinal particles of matter, and which we are sooften called upon 
to believe—under pain, as it were, of intellectual reprobation—offers unspeakably 
greater difficulties to the intellect than any form of Theism with which I am ac- 
quainted.”—W. S. Lilly, 19th Century, August, 1888, 
(b) Igee no other, way, for you, laymen, than to trust the scientific man with the 
choice of his inquiries; he stands before the tribunal of his peers, and by their 
verdict on his labours you ought to abide.”"—(Tyndall on Light, p. 66). 
