APOLOGY FOR THE BELFAST ADDEESS. 219 



effort of animated nature is to improve its condition 

 and raise itself to a loftier level. In man improvement 

 and amelioration depend largely upon the growth of 

 conscious knowledge, by which the errors of ignorance 

 are continually moulted, and truth is organised. It is 

 the advance of knowledge that has given a material- 

 istic colour to the philosophy of this age. Materialism 

 is therefore not a thing to be mourned 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 oc- 

 cupied enquiring minds. It is our duty not to shirk 

 it ought rather to be our privilege to accept the es- 

 tablished results of such enquiries, 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 na- 

 ture, we shall be better prepared, not only to mend 

 their manifold defects, but also to strengthen and 

 purify both. Is mind degraded by this recognition of 

 its dependence? Assuredly not. Matter, on the con- 

 trary, 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 Congreii* 

 affords evidence of this. From the manifold confusions 

 of that assemblage my memory has rescued two items, 

 which it would fain preserve: the recognition of a re- 

 lation between Health and Religion, and the address of 

 the Rev. Harry Jones. Out of the conflict of vanities 

 his words emerge wholesome and strong, because un- 

 drugged by dogma, coming directly from the warm 

 brain of one who knows what practical truth means, 

 44 



