APOLOGY FOR THE BELFAST ADDRESS. 207 



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 perma- 

 nent 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 enun- 

 ciated by me. In doing so he transgressed the bounds 

 of science at least as 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 extrava- 

 gances of the religious world; at the very inadequate 

 and foolish notions concerning this universe which are 

 entertained by the majority of our authorised religious 

 teachers; at the waste of energy on the part of good 

 men over things unworthy, if I may say it without dis- 

 courtesy, of the attention of enlightened heathens; 

 the fight about the fripperies of Ritualism, and the 

 verbal quibbles of the Athanasian Creed; the forcing on 

 the public view of Pontigny Pilgrimages; the dating 

 of historic epochs from the definition of the Immacu- 

 late Conception; the proclamation of the Divine Glo- 

 ries of the Sacred Heart standing in the midst of these 

 chimeras, which astound all thinking men, it did not 

 appear to me extravagant to claim the public tolerance 

 for an hour and a half, for the statement of more 

 reasonable views views more in accordance with the 

 verities which science has brought to light, and which 

 many weary souls would, I thought, welcome with 

 gratification and relief. 



But to come to closer quarters. The expression to 

 which the most violent exception has been taken is 



