THE REV. JAMES MARTINEA U. 513 



besom of Science various "books" contemptuously away, 

 he does not define the Sacred residue; much less give us 

 the reasons why he deems them sacred.* His references 

 to " Nature," on the other hand, are magnificent tirades 

 against Nature, intended, apparently, to show the wholly 

 abominable character of man's antecedents if the theory of 

 evolution be true. Here also his mood lacks steadiness. 

 While joyfully accepting, at one place, " the widening 

 space, the deepening vistas of time, the detected marvels 

 of physiological structure, and the rapid filling-in of the 

 missing links in the chain of organic life," he falls, at 

 another, into lamentation and mourning over the very 

 theory which renders "organic life" "a chain." He 

 claims the largest liberality for his sect, and avows its con- 

 tempt for the dangers of possible discovery. But imme- 

 diately afterward he damages the claim, and ruins all 

 confidence in the avowal. He professes sympathy with 

 modern Science, and almost in the same breath he treats, 

 or certainly will be understood to treat, the Atomic Theory, 

 and the doctrine of the Conservation of Energy, as if they 

 were a kind of scientific thimble-riggery. 



His ardor, moreover, renders him inaccurate; causing 

 him to see discord between scientific men where nothing 

 but harmony reigns. In his celebrated address to the 

 Congress of German Naturforscher, delivered at Leipzig, 

 three years ago, Du Bois-Reymond speaks thus: " What 

 conceivable connection subsists between definite movements 

 of definite atoms in my brain, on the one hand, and on 

 the other hand such primordial, indefinable, undeniable, 

 facts as these: I feel pain or pleasure; I experience a 

 sweet taste, or smell a rose, or hear an organ, or see some- 

 thing red. ... It is absolutely and forever inconceivable 

 that a number of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen 

 atoms should be otherwise than indifferent as to their own 

 position and motion, past, present, or future. It is utterly 

 inconceivable how consciousness should result from their 

 joint action." 



This language, which was spoken in 1872, Mr. Martineau 



* Mr. Martineau's use of the term " sacred " is unintentionally mis 

 leading. In his later essays we are taught that he does not mean to 

 restrict it to the Bible. He does not, however, mention the " books " 

 beyond those of the Bible to which he would apply the term. 

 1879. 



