216 FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE 



nature be the really potent factor, we may expect utter- 

 ances as heterogeneous as the characters of men. As a 

 matter of fact we have the latter; suggesting to my mind 

 that the common religion, professed and defended by these 

 different people, is merely the accidental conduit through 

 which they pour their own tempers, lofty or low, courte- 

 ous or vulgar, mild or ferocious, as the case may be. 

 Pure abuse, however, as serving no good end, I have, 

 wherever possible, deliberately avoided reading, wishing, 

 indeed, to keep, not only hatred, malice, and uncharita- 

 bleness, but even every trace of irritation, far away from 

 my side of a discussion which demands not only good- 

 temper, but largeness, clearness, and many-sidedness of 

 mind, if it is to guide us to even provisional solutions. 



It has been stated, with many variations of note and 

 comment, that in the Address as subsequently published 

 by Messrs. Longman I have retracted opinions uttered at 

 Belfast. A Roman Catholic writer is specially strong upon 

 this point. Startled by the deep chorus of dissent which 

 my "dazzling fallacies" have evoked, I am now trying to 

 retreat. This he will by no means tolerate. "It is too 

 late now to seek to hide from the eyes of mankind one 

 foul blot, one ghastly deformity. Professor Tyndall has 

 himself told us how and where this Address of his was 

 composed. It was written among the glaciers and the 

 solitudes of the Swiss mountains. It was- no hasty, hur- 

 ried, crude production; its every sentence bore marks of 

 thought and care." 



My critic intends to be severe: he is simply just. In 

 the "solitudes" to which he refers I worked with delib- 

 eration, endeavoring even to purify my intellect by dis- 

 ciplines similar to those enjoined by his own Church for 



