REV. JAMES MARTINEAU AND BELFAST ADDRESS. 233 



I now come to one of the most yerious portions of 

 Mr. Martineau's pamphlet serious far less on account 

 of its ' personal errors,' than of its intrinsic gravity, 

 though its author has thought fit to give it a witty and 

 sarcastic tone. He analyses and criticises * the materi- 

 alist doctrine, which, in our time, is proclaimed with 

 so much pomp, and resisted with so much passion. 

 " Matter is all I want," says the physicist ; " give me its 

 atoms alone, and I will explain the universe." ' It is 

 thought, even by Mr. Martineau's intimate friends, 

 that in this pamphlet he is answering me. I must 

 therefore ask the reader to contrast the foregoing 

 travesty with what I really do say regarding atoms : ' I 

 do not think that he [the materialist] is entitled to 

 say that his molecular groupings and motions explain 

 everything. In reality, they explain nothing. The 

 utmost he can affirm is the association of two classes of 

 phenomena, 'of whose real bond of union he is in abso- 

 lute ignorance.' 1 This is very different from saying, 

 ' Give me its atoms alone, and I will explain the uni- 

 verse.' Mr. Martineau continues his dialogue with the 

 physicist : ' " Good," he says ; " take as many atoms as 

 you please. See that they have all that is requisite to 

 Body [a metaphysical B], being homogeneous extended 

 solids." "That is not enough,'' his physicist replies; "it 

 might do for Democritus and the mathematicians, but I 

 must have something more. The atoms must not only 

 be in motion, and of various shapes, but also of as many 

 kinds as there are chemical elements ; for how could I 

 ever get water if I had only hydrogen elements to work 

 with ? " " So be it," Mr. Martineau consents to an- 

 swer, " only this is a considerable enlargement of your 

 specified datum [where, and by whom specified?] in 

 fact, a conversion of it into several ; yet, even at the 

 1 Address on ' Scientific Materialism.' 



