THE BELFAST ADDHESS. 491 



range of play. The wise teacher of humanity will recognize 

 the necessity of meeting this demand, rather than of resist- 

 ing it on account of errors and absurdities of form. What 

 we should resist, at all hazards, is the attempt made in the 

 past, and now repeated, to found upon this elemental bias 

 of man's nature a system which should exercise despotic 

 sway over his intellect. I have no fear of such a consum- 

 mation. Science has already to some extent leavened the 

 world; it will leaven it more and more. I should look 

 upon the mild light of science breaking in upon the minds 

 of the youth of Ireland, and strengthening gradually to the 

 perfect day, as a surer check to anyjiitcllectual^or^spintuaj 

 tyranny which may threaten this island, than the Taws of 

 princes or the swords of emperors. We fought and won 

 our battle even in the middle ages: should we doubt the 

 issue of another conflict with our proKen foe? 



The impregnable position of science may be described in 

 a few words. We claim, and we shall wrest from theology, 

 the entire domain of cosmological theory. All schemes 

 and systems which thus infringe upon the domain of 

 science must, in so far as they do this, submit to its con- 

 trol, and relinquish all thought of controlling it. Acting 

 otherwise proved always disastrous in the past, and it is 

 simply fatuous to-day. Every system which would escape 

 the fate of an organism too rigid to adjust itself to its 

 environment, must be plastic to the extent that the growth 

 of knowledge demands. When this truth has been 

 thoroughly taken in, rigidity will be relaxed, exclnsiveness 

 diminished, things now deemed essential will be dropped, 

 and elements now rejected will be assimilated. The lifting 

 of the life is the essential point; and as long as dogmatism, 

 fanaticism, and intolerance are kept out, various modes of 

 leverage may be employed to raise life to a higher level. 



Science itself not unfrequently derives motive power 

 from an ultra-scientific source. Some of its greatest dis- 

 coveries have been made under the the stimulus of a non- 

 scientific ideal. This was the case among the ancients, 

 and it has been so among ourselves. Mayer, Joule, and 

 Colding, whose names are associated with the greatest of 

 modern generalizations, were thus influenced. YVith his 

 usual insight, Lunge at one place remarks, that "it is not 

 always the objectively correct and intelligible that helps 

 man most, or, leads most quickly to the fullest and truest 



