THE BELFAST ADDRESS. 469 



this issue of consciousness from the clash of atoms is not 

 more incongruous than the flash of light from the union of 

 oxygen and hydrogen. But I beg to say that it is. For 

 such incongruity as the flash possesses is that which I now 

 force upon your attention. The "flash" is an affair of 

 consciousness, the objective counterpart of which is a 

 vibration. It is a flash only by your interpretation. You 

 are the cause of the apparent incongruity; and you are the 

 thing that puzzles me. I need not remind you that the 

 groat Leibnitz felt the difficulty which I feel; and that to 

 got rid of this monstrous deduction of life from death he 

 displaced your atoms by his monads, which were more or 

 less perfect mirrors of the universe, and out of the sum- 

 mation and integration of which he supposed all the 

 phenomena of life sentient, intellectual, and emotional 

 to arise. 



" Your difficulty, then, as I see you are ready to admit, 

 is quite as great as mine. You cannot satisfy the human 

 understanding in its demand for logical continuity between 

 molecular processes and the phenomena of consciousness. 

 This is a rock on which Materialism must inevitably split 

 whenever it pretends to be a complete philosophy of life. 

 What is the moral, my Lucretiau? You and I are not 

 likely to indulge in ill-temper in the discussion of these 

 great topics, where we see so much room for honest differ- 

 ences of opinion. But there are people of less wit or more 

 bigotry (I say it with humility), on both sides, who are 

 ever ready to mingle anger and vituperation with such dis- 

 cussions. There are, for example, writers of note and in- 

 fluence at the present day, who are not ashamed publicly 

 to assume the "deep personal sin" of a great logician to 

 be the cause of his unbelief in a theologic dogma.* And 

 there are others who hold that we, who cherish our noble 

 Bible, wrought as it has been into the constitution of our 

 forefathers, and by inheritance into us, must necessarily be 

 hypocritical and insincere. Let us disavow and discoun- 

 tenance such people, cherishing the unswerving faith that 



^derwhich the late editor of the "Dublin 



Review " presented to lii n'lil f.ha memory of John Stuart Mill. 



I can only say, that I would i nuil Ntl,i my chance in the, 



world, in the company of the " unbeliever,' 



detractor. In Dr. Ward we have an exam 



vigorous nature, soured and | I J nn' n f creed. 



