244 FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE 



comprehend. 17 Though "knowledge" is here disavowed, 

 the "feelings" of Mr. Martineau and myself are, I think, 

 very much alike. He, nevertheless, censures me almost 

 denounces me for referring Religion to the region of 

 Emotion. Surely he is inconsistent here. The foregoing 

 words refer to an inward hue or temperature, rather than 

 to an external object of thought. When I attempt to give 

 the Power which I see manifested in the Universe an ob- 

 jective form, personal or otherwise, it slips away from me, 

 declining all intellectual manipulation. I dare not, save 

 poetically, use the pronoun "He" regarding it; I dare not 

 call it a "Mind"; I refuse to call it even a "Cause." Its 

 mystery overshadows me; but it remains a mystery, while 

 the objective frames which some of my neighbors try to 

 make it fit seem to me to distort and desecrate it. 



It is otherwise with Mr. Martineau, and hence his dis- 

 content. He professes to know where I only claim to feel. 

 He could make his contention good against me if, by a 

 process of verification, he would transform his assump- 

 tions into "objective knowledge." But he makes no at- 

 tempt to do so. They remain assumptions from the begin- 

 ning of his Address to its end. And yet he frequently 

 uses the word "unverified," as if it were fatal to the posi- 

 tion on which its incidence falls. "The scrutiny of Nat- 

 ure" is one of his sources of "religious faith": what 

 logical foothold does that scrutiny furnish, on which any 

 one of the foregoing three assumptions could be planted ? 

 Nature, according to his picturing, is base and cruel: what 

 is the inference to be drawn regarding its Author? If 

 Nature be "red in tooth and claw," who is responsible? 

 On a Mindless nature Mr. Martineau pours the full torrent 

 of his gorgeous invective; but could the "assumption" of 



