THE BELFAST ADDRESS. 201 



to the point to say that the views of Lucretius and 

 Bruno, of Darwin and Spencer, may be wrong. Here I 

 should agree with you, deeming it indeed certain that 

 these views will undergo modification. But the point 

 is, that, whether right or wrong, we claim the right to 

 discuss them. For science, however, no exclusive 

 claim is here made; you are not urged to erect it into 

 an idol. The inexorable advance of man's understand- 

 ing in the path of knowledge, and those unquenchable 

 claims of his moral and emotional nature, which the 

 understanding can never satisfy, are here equally set 

 forth. The world embraces not only a Newton, but a 

 Shakspeare not only a Boyle, but a Raphael not only 

 a Kant, but a Beethoven not only a Darwin, but a 

 Carlyle. Not in each of these, but in all, is human 

 nature whole. They are not opposed, but supplemen- 

 tary not mutually exclusive, but reconcilable. And 

 if, unsatisfied with them all, the human mind, with 

 the yearning of a pilgrim for his distant home, will still 

 turn to the Mystery from which it has emerged, seek- 

 ing so to fashion it as to give unity to thought and 

 faith; so long as this is done, not only without intoler- 

 ance or bigotry of any kind, but with the enlightened 

 recognition that ultimate fixity of conception is here 

 unattainable, and that each succeeding age must be 

 held free to fashion the mystery in accordance with 

 its own needs then, casting 1 aside all the restrictions 

 of Materialism, I would affirm this to be a field for the 

 noblest exercise of what, in contrast with the knowing 

 faculties, may be called the creative faculties of man. 

 Here, however, I touch a theme too great for me to 

 handle, but which will assuredly be handled by the 

 loftiest minds, when you and I, like streaks of morn- 

 ing cloud, shall have melted into the infinite azure of 

 the past. 



