508 FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 
be monrned over, but to be honestly considered accepted 
if it be wholly true, rejected if it be wholly false, wisely 
sifted and turned to account if it embrace a mixture of 
truth and error. Of late years the study of the nervous 
system, and its relation to thought and feeling, have 
profoundly occupied inquiring minds. It is our duty 
not to shirk it ought rather to be our privilege to accept 
the established results of such inquiries, for here 
assuredly our ultimate weal depends upon our loyalty to 
the truth. Instructed as to the control which the nervous 
system exercises over man's moral and intellectual nature, 
we shall be better prepared, not only to mend their mani- 
fold defects, but also to strengthen and purify both. Is 
mind degraded by this recognition of its dependence? 
Assuredly not. Matter, on the contrary, is raised to the 
level it ought to occupy, and from which timid ignorance 
would remove it. 
But the light is dawning, and it will become stronger as 
time goes on. Even the Brighton "Church Congress" 
affords evidence of this. From the manifold confusions 
of that assemblage my memory has rescued two items, 
which it would fain preserve:! jthe recognition of a relation 
between health and religion, and the address of the Eev. 
Harry Jones. Out of the conflict of vanities his words 
emerge wholesome and strong, because undrugged by 
dogma, coming directly from the warm brain of one who 
knows what practical truth means, and who has faith in 
its vitality and inherent power of propagation. I wonder 
whether he is less effectual in his ministry than his more 
embroidered colleagues? It surely behooves our teachers to 
come to some definite understanding as to this question of 
health; to see how, by inattention to it, we are defrauded, 
negatively and positively: negatively, by the privation of 
that "sweetness and light" which is the natural con- 
comitant of good health; positively, by the insertion into 
life of cynicism, ill-temper, and a thousand corroding 
anxieties which good health would dissipate. We fear and 
scorn '' materialism." But he who knew all about it, and 
could apply his knowledge, might become the preacher of 
a new gospel. Not, however, through theecstatic moments 
of the individual does such knowledge come, but through 
the revelations of science, in' connection wiih the history 
of mankind. 
