BEKKELEY, ADDRESS AT NORWICH. 239 



far more likely to meet with anything like a general accepta- 

 tion. Be thisj however, as it may, its comprehensiveness 

 Avill still remain the same. We must still take it as a com- 

 pendium of an enormous mass of facts, comprised in the 

 most marvellous manner within an extremely narrow com- 

 pass. 



I shall venture to offer a very few words in conclusion, 

 which, perhaps, may be thought to have too theological an 

 aspect for the present occasion. 



It is obvious hoAv open such a theory is to the charge of 

 materialism. It is an undoubted fact, however, that mental 

 peculiarities and endowments, together with mere habits, 

 are handed down and subject to the same laws of reversion, 

 atavism, and inheritance, as mere structural accidents, and 

 there must be some reason for one class of facts as well as 

 the other ; and whatever the explanation may be, the hand 

 of God is equally visible and equally essential in all. We 

 cannot now refer every indication of thought and reasoning 

 beyond the j^ale of humanity to blind instinct, as was once 

 the fashion, from a fear of the inferences which might be 

 made. Should any one, however, be still afraid of any 

 theory like that before us, I would suggest that man is 

 represented in Scripture as differing from the other members 

 of the animal world, by possessing a spirit as well as a 

 reasoning mind. The distinction between \pvy(^r] and irvivfia, 

 which is recognised by the Germans in their familiar words 

 seele and geist, but which Ave have no words in our language* 

 to express properly, or in other terms between mere mental 

 powers which the rest of the creation possess in greater or 

 less degree in common with ourselves, and an immortal 

 spuit, if rightly weighed, will, perhaps, lead some to look 

 u.pon the matter with less fear and prejudice. Nothing can 

 be more unfair, and I may add unwise, than to stamp at once 

 this and cognate speculations with the charge of irreligion. 

 Of this, however, I feel assured, that the members of this 

 Association will conclude with me in bidding this great and 

 conscientious author God-speed, and join in exj)ressing a hope 

 that his health may be preserved to enrich science with the 

 results of his great powders of mind and unwearied observa- 

 tion. 



* A proof of this poverty of language is visible in the words used in our 

 translation for »//vxikoj/ and Trviv^aTiKov — natural and spiritual, their proper 

 meaning, taken in connection with cruiyita, being a body with a soul, and a 

 body with a spirit. 



