498 FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 
the solar system what it is, will any theologian deny my 
right to entertain and express this theoretic view? Time 
was when a multitude of theologians would have been 
found to do so when that arch-enemy of science which 
now vaunts its tolerance would have made a speedy end of 
the man who might venture to publish any opinion of the 
kind. But, that time, unless the world is caught strangely 
slumbering, is forever past. 
As regards^ inorganic nature, then, we may traverse, 
without let or hindrance, the whole distance which sepa- 
rates the nebula? from the worlds of to-day. Hut only a few 
years ago this now conceded ground of science was theolog- 
ical ground. I could by no means regard this as the final 
and sufficient concession of theology; and, at Belfast, I 
thought it, not only my right but my duty to state that, as 
regards the organic world, we must enjoy the freedom 
which we have already won in regard to the inorganic. I 
could not discern the shred of a title-deed which gave any 
man, or any class of men, the right to open the door of 
one of these worlds to the scientific searcher and to close 
the other against him. And I considered it frankest, 
wisest, and in the long run most conducive to permanent 
peace, to indicate, without evasion or reserve, the ground 
that belongs to Science, and to which she will assuredly 
make good her claim. 
I_have been reminded that an eminent predecessor of 
mine in the presidential chair expressed a totally different 
view of the cause of things from that enunoiafed by me. 
In doing so he transgressed the bounds of science at least 
UuS much as I did; but nobody raised an outcry against 
him. The freedom he took I claim. And looking at what 
I must regard as the extravagances of the religious world; 
at the very inadequate and foolish notions concerning this 
universe which are entertained by the majority of our 
authorized religious teachers; at the waste of energy on 
the part of good men over things unworthy, if I may say 
it without discourtesy, of the attention of enlightened 
heathens; the fight about the fripperies 01 'Ritualism, and 
the verbal quibbles of tlie^Athanasian Creed; the forcing 
on the public view of Pon tigTry-^Tgri mages; the dating 
of historic epochs from the definition of the Immaculate 
Conception; the proclamation of the Divine Glories of 
the Sacred Heart standing iu the midst of these 
