REV. MARTINEAU AND BELFAST ADDRESS 263 



Jesuit notion does not err on the score of indefiniteness. 

 According to it, the Power whom Goethe does not dare 

 to name, and whom Gassendi and Clerk Maxwell present 

 to lis nnder the guise of a "Manufacturer" of atoms, turns 

 out annually, for England and Wales alone, a quarter 

 of a million of new souls. Taken in connection with the 

 dictum of Mr. Carlyle, that this annual increment to our 

 population are "mostly fools," but little profit to the 

 human heart seems derivable from this mode of regarding 

 the Divine operations. 



But if the Jesuit notion be rejected, what are we to 

 accept? Physiologists say that every human being comes 

 from an egg not more than the jhth. of an inch in diam- 

 eter. Is this egg matter? I hold it to be so, as much 

 as the seed of a fern or of an oak. Nine months go to 

 the making of it into a man. Are the additions made 

 during this period of gestation drawn from matter? I 

 think so undoubtedly. If there be anything besides mat- 

 ter in the egg, or in the infant subsequently slumbering 

 in the womb, what is it? The questions already asked 

 with reference to the stars of snow may be here repeated. 

 Mr. Martineau will complain that I am disenchanting the 

 babe of its wonder; but is this the case? I figure it grow- 

 ing in the womb, woven by a something not itself, without 

 conscious participation on the part of either father or 

 mother, and appearing in due time a living miracle, with 

 all its organs and all their implications. Consider the 

 work accomplished during these nine months in forming 



concession of power to the Jesuits in the schools, he did far more damage to tho 

 intellectual freedom of his country than his superstitious predecessor Ludwig I. 

 Priding himself on being a G-erman Prince, Ludwig would not tolerate the inter- 

 ference of the Roman party with the poUtical afEairs of Bavaria. 



