386 LESSONS FEOM NATUEE. [CHAP. XIII. 



general character of their utterances. With a loud profession 

 of man s necessary ignorance is joined a confident assertion as 

 to the course which would be pursued by a being of infinite 

 power, wisdom, and goodness, did such a being exist, with an 

 implicit or explicit denial of such existence. 



Let us then note certain utterances of popular teachers of 

 high standing which appear to have met with a very wide 

 acceptance. 



Professor Tyndall, in his treatise on The Constitution of 

 Professor Nature (reprinted in his collected essays), to the 



Tyndall s V _ T _ . 



teaching. question, &quot; Was space furnished at once, by the 

 fiat of Omnipotence, with these burning orbs ?&quot; replies : 



&quot; To this question the man of science, if he confine himself within 

 his own limits, will give no answer, though it must be remarked, that 

 in the formation of an opinion he has better materials to guide him than 

 anybody else.&quot; Fragments of Science, p. 6. 



In his address to the students of University College, he 

 tells them that the poet of the future 



&quot; ought to be the interpreter of that power which, as Jehovah, 

 Jove, or Lord/ has hitherto filled and strengthened the human heart.&quot; 



ibid. p.m. 



Again, in his paper on Vitality he remarks : 



&quot;The most advanced philosophers of the present day declare that 

 they ultimately arrive at a single source of power, from which all vital 

 energy is derived ; and tlte disquieting circumstance is that this source is 

 not the direct fiat of a supernatural agent, but a reservoir of what, if we 

 do not accept the creed of Zoroaster, must be regarded as inorganic 

 force.&quot; Ibid. p. 436. 



Moreover, all this dogmatism is unaccompanied by one 

 word of explanation as to the absence of any real necessary 

 conflict between the action of evolution itself and the con 

 ception of its results being absolutely and primarily due to 

 the &quot; fiat of a supernatural agent.&quot; 



Once more, in his little work on the Use and Limit of 

 the Imagination in Science, he expresses himself thus : 



&quot; Whence come we ; whither go we ? The question dies without an 

 answer without even an echo upon the infinite shores of the Unknown. 



