THE BELFAST ADDRESS. 493 



Fichte, " to have been the teacher of the Stoa, and to have 

 discoursed of Beauty and Virtue in the groves of Academe." 

 With a capacity to grasp physical principles which his 

 friend Goethe did not possess, and which even total lack of 

 exercise has not been able to reduce to atrophy, it is the 

 world's loss that he, in the vigor of his years, did not open 

 his mind and sympathies to science, and make its con- 

 clusions a portion of his message to mankind. Mar- 

 velously endowed as he was equally equipped on the side 

 of the heart and of the understanding he might have 

 done much toward teaching us how to reconcile the claims 

 of both, and to enable them in coming times to dwell to- 

 gether, in unity of spirit and in the bond of peace. 



And now the end is come. With more time, or greater 

 strength and knowledge, what has been here said might 

 have been better said, while worthy matters, here omitted, 

 might have received fit expression. But there would have 

 been no material deviation from the views set forth. As 

 regards myself, they are not the growth of a day; and as 

 regards you, I thought you ought to know the environment 

 which, with or without your consent, is rapidly surrounding 

 you, and in relation to which some adjustment on your 

 part may be necessary. A hint of Hamlet's, however, 

 teaches us how the troubles of common life may be ended; 

 and it is perfectly possible for you and me to purchase 

 intellectual peace at the price of intellectual death. The 

 world is not without refuges of this description; nor is it 

 wanting in persons who seek their shelter, and try to 

 persuade others to do the same. The unstable and the 

 weak have yielded and will yield to this persuasion, and 

 they to whom repose is sweeter than the truth. But I 

 would exhort you to refuse the offered shelter, and to scorn 

 the base repose to accept, if the choice be forced upon 

 you, commotion before stagnation, the breezy leap of the 

 torrent before the foetid stillness of the swamp. In the 

 course of this address I have touched on debatable ques- 

 tions, and led you over what will be deemed dangerous 

 ground and this partly with the view of telling you that, 

 as regards these questions, science claims unrestricted right 

 of search. It is not to the point to say that the views' of 

 Lucretius and Bruno, of Darwin and Spencer, may be 

 wrong. Here I should agree with you, deeming it indeed 



