REV. J. MARTINEAU AND BELFAST ADDRESS. 249 



woven by a something not itself, without conscious 

 participation on the part of either father or mother, 

 and appearing in due time a living miracle, with all 

 its organs and all their implications. Consider the 

 work accomplished during these nine months in form- 

 ing the eye alone with its lens, and its humours, and 

 its miraculous retina behind. Consider the ear with 

 its tympanum, cochlea, and Corti's organ an instru- 

 ment of three thousand strings, built adjacent to the 

 brain, and employed by it to sift, separate, and inter- 

 pret, antecedent to all consciousness, the sonorous 

 tremors of the external world. All this has been ac- 

 complished, not only without man's contrivance, but 

 without his knowledge, the secret of his own organisa- 

 tion having been withheld from him since his birth in 

 the immeasurable past, until these latter days. Matter 

 I define as that mysterious thing by which all this is 

 accomplished. How it came to have this power is a 

 question on which I never ventured an opinion. If, 

 then, Matter starts as * a beggar/ it is, in my view, be- 

 cause the Jacobs of theology have deprived it of its 

 birthright. Mr. Martineau need fear no disenchant- 

 ment. Theories of evolution go but a short way to- 

 wards the explanation of this mystery; the Ages, let us 

 hope, will at length give us a Poet competent to deal 

 with it aright. 



There are men, and they include amongst them 

 some of the best of the race of man, upon whose minds 

 this mystery falls without producing either warmth or 

 colour. The 'dry light' of the intellect suffices for 

 them, and they live their noble lives untouched by a 

 desire to give the mystery shape or expression. There 

 are, on the other hand, men whose minds are warmed 

 and coloured by its presence, and who, under its stimu- 

 lus, attain to moral heights which have never been 



