LESSONS FROM NATURE. [CHAP. XIII. 



&quot; completely sacerdotal &quot; and &quot; entirely anti-scientific,&quot; and 

 adds* that &quot; the logical, practical result of this part of his 

 doctrine would be the establishment of something corre 

 sponding with that eminently Catholic, but admittedly anti- 

 scientific, institution the Holy Office.&quot; ( Lay Sermons, 

 p. 190.) 



Another utterance comes from France with a warning in 

 the same direction, and from one whose orthodoxy cannot be 

 suspected of having sharpened his apprehensions as to the 

 future. M. Ernest Kenan f speculates as to whether &quot; 1 avenir 

 ne ramenera pas quelque chose d analogue a la discipline 

 ecclesiastique que le liberalisme moderne a si jalousement 

 supprimee.&quot; 



The Duke of Argyll,} commenting on Mr. Lewes s dictum 

 that &quot; whatever is inaccessible to reason should be strictly in 

 terdicted by reason,&quot; observes : &quot; Here we have the true ring 

 of the old sacerdotal interdicts. Who is to define beforehand 

 what is, or what is not, inaccessible to reason ?&quot; 



The same intolerance of freedom, even in the region of 

 pure speculation, is shown by a writer in the Westminster 

 Eevievv (for October 1873, p. 398), who, speaking of the 

 modern man of science, tells us : &quot; Above all things he is 

 silent in the presence of truths (or falsehoods) which he has 

 ascertained to be beyond HIS reach. And he COMMANDS 

 equally in respect to these silence on all others of mankind&quot; 

 These Agnostics, in their hostility to those whose vision is 

 less limited, recall the complaint of Beranger s Owl as to 

 the enmity he innocently excited : &quot; Parceque fy vois clair 

 la nuit&quot; 



But the most portentous phenomenon of this kind is the 

 open avowal of intolerance, and the direct advocacy of per- 



* Professor Huxley adds the singular remark that &quot; the great teaching of 

 science the great use of it as an instrument of mental discipline is its con 

 stant inculcation of the maxim, that the sole ground on which any statement has 

 a right to be believed is the impossibility of refuting it . &quot; According to this, 

 we have ground for believing that a green dragon inhabits the sun, since such 

 a proposition it is quite impossible to refute. 



f S. Paul, p. 392. 



t Primeval Man, pp. 21-23. 



