168 FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 



produces the very swoon to which you refer, and that 

 in relation to it our meat, and drink, and air, and 

 exercise, have a perfectly transcendental value and sig- 

 nificance to forget all this does, I think, open a way 

 to innumerable errors in our habits of life, and may 

 possibly, in some cases, initiate and foster that very 

 disease, and consequent mental ruin, which a wiser 

 appreciation of this mysterious organ would 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 reflection, and having strengthened himself 

 by that honest contemplation of the facts which was 

 habitual with him, and which includes the desire to give 

 even adverse reasonings their due weight, I can suppose 

 the Bishop to proceed thus : ' You will remember that 

 in the " Analogy of Religion," of which you have so 

 kindly spoken, I did not profess to prove anything 

 absolutely, and that I over and over again acknowledged 

 and insisted on the smallness of our knowledge, or 

 rather the depth of our ignorance, as regards the whole 

 system of the universe. My object was to show my 

 deistical friends, who set forth so eloquently the beauty 

 and beneficence 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 

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

 be found upon theirs. I will now, with your permission, 

 adopt a similar line of argument. You are a Lucretian, 

 and from the combination and separation of insensate 

 atoms deduce all terrestrial things, including organic 

 forms and their phenomena. Let me tell you in the 

 first instance how far I am prepared to go with you. I 



