REV. MARTINEAU AND BELFAST ADDRESS 261 



held it to be in matters of religion ; but in the contempla- 

 tion of probabilities the thoughtful mind is forced to take 

 a side. The conclusion of Science, which recognizes un- 

 broken causal connection between the past and the pres- 

 ent, would undoubtedly be that the molten earth contained 

 within it elements of life, which grouped themselves into 

 their present forms as the planet cooled. The difficulty 

 and reluctance encountered by this conception arise solely 

 from the fact that the theologic conception obtained a 

 prior footing in the human mind. Did the latter depend 

 upon reasoning alone, it could not hold its ground for an 

 hour against its rival. But it is warmed into life and 

 strength by associated hopes and fears and not only by 

 these, which are more or less mean, but by that loftiness 

 of thought and feeling which lifts its possessor above the 

 atmosphere of self, and which the theologic idea, in its 

 nobler forms, has engendered in noble minds. 



Were not man's origin implicated, we should accept 

 without a murmur the derivation of animal and vegetable 

 life from what we call inorganic nature. The conclusion 

 of pure intellect points this way and no other. But the 

 purity is troubled by our interests in this life, and by our 

 hopes and fears regarding the life to come. Reason is 

 traversed by the emotions, anger rising in the weaker 

 heads to the height of suggesting that the suppression of 

 the inquirer by the arm of the law would be an act agree- 

 able to God, and serviceable to man. But this foolish- 

 ness is more than neutralized by the sympathy of the wise ; 

 and in England at least, so long as the courtesy which 

 befits an earnest theme is adhered to, such sympathy is 

 ever ready for an honest man. None of us here need 

 shrink from saying all that he has a right to say. We 



