SCIENCE AND MAN. 357 



< offensive,' I refer simply to the intention of those who 

 use such terms, and not because atheism or materialism, 

 when compared with many of the notions ventilated in 

 the columns of religious newspapers, has any particular 

 offensiveness for me. If I wished to find men who are 

 scrupulous in their adherence to engagements, whose 

 words are their bond, and to whom moral shiftiness of 

 any kind is subjectively unknown ; if I wanted a loving 

 father, a faithful husband,* an honourable neighbour, 

 and a just citizen I should seek him, and find him 

 among the band of ' atheists ' to which I refer. I have 

 known some of the most pronounced among them not 

 only in life but in death seen them approaching with 

 open eyes the inexorable goal, with no dread of a 

 ' hangman's whip,' with no hope of a heavenly crown, 

 and still as mindful of their duties, and as faithful in 

 the discharge of them, as if their eternal future de- 

 pended upon their latest deeds. 



In letters addressed to myself, and in utterances 

 addressed to the public, Faraday is often referred to as 

 a sample of the association of religious faith with moral 

 elevation. I was locally intimate with him for four- 

 teen or fifteen years of my life, and had thus occasion 

 to observe how nearly his character approached what 

 might, without extravagance, be called perfection. He 

 was strong but gentle, impetuous but self-restrained ; a 

 sweet and lofty courtesy marked his dealings with men 

 and women ; and though he sprang from the body of 

 the people, a nature so fine might well have been dis- 

 tilled from the flower of antecedent chivalry. Not only 

 in its broader sense was the Christian religion necessary 

 to Faraday's spiritual peace, but in what many would 

 call the narrow sense held by those described by Fara- 

 day himself as 'a very small and despised sect of 



