ration, by numbers, of the constitution of things would induce me to celebrate 

 him in this place ; and I am incited by this character of his mind because, in 

 my judgment, by the temporary setting-in of materialism in speculators of 

 the contentious and imperious sort, we are likely, if but for a while, to be put 

 back in all those immaterial values that distinguish and ennoble our nature. 

 The oration, last summer, of Dr. Storrs at Cambridge showed us the " more 

 excellent way." Nevertheless, the main ten:'ency, the current theory (for it 

 is theory, and not Socratically reasoned truth) runs otherwise, and would 

 inform or convince us that all comes up from the earth, and that there is no 

 heaven but this external sky whence aught can come clown. Even the spirits 

 materialize in the dusky circles now ! Like the silt and deposit, by which 

 lakes and creeks are filled up yonder, and the ocean slowly retires from the 

 coast, so a grosser element is the mental sand or mud by which the river of 

 God is made shallow, and the old sea of faith and truth pushed back, to send 

 no more tidings to dwellers in these earthly bounds. The idol of experience 

 is put for the deity of spirit and life. "In matter," says Mr. Tyndall, "we 

 see the promise and potency of all the forms of life." But whence, save 

 from an original, essential, and boundless life or being, arose the possibility 

 of any and all the living forms ? Which, matter or spirit, is first, highest, 

 best? or are they simultaneous and but diverse names of the same thing? 

 In this discussion, the lists drawn and the battle set, Peirce did not hesitate, 

 but took unequivocally and fervently the spiritual side. After listening to 

 him for an hour, who but was persuaded of the superiority of mind, of reason, 

 of love, to all else, and that nought, as he instructed us, could get beyond the 

 beauty and power of a child's prayer taught by a mother at her little one's 

 cot or crib ? I own, for one, I was refreshed and cheered out of all despond- 

 ency or distrust by this pattern of a man whose idea and whose self was an 

 overweight for all the tremendous spheres that had been the theme of his 

 lucid and familiar talk, and which he could imaginatively hand round as little 

 specimens to be examined by his class. 



As he knew the being of God, so he held to the immortality of the soul, 

 and naturally ; for what is composed of, will be resolved into, dust. But the 

 offspring of spirit will outlive this form of flesh. It is the survival of the 

 fittest, beyond any present animal or vegetable cases Darwin cites. 



This faith in him was less a scientific deduction than an instinct, intuition, 

 tradition, and consciousness of religious feeling, although his science contra- 

 dicted not, but was consonant therewith. He shared it with Agassiz, as Dr. 

 Edward H. Clarke told me, Agassiz, his friend and intellectual equal, with 



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