856 BIOLOGICAL TRAINING AND STUDIES. 



of evidence not proper to the subject, and so hindering- their weigh- 

 ing fairly what belongs to it. No scientific study of the pheno- 

 mena which imply a reign of law could ever have issued in the 

 discovery of the kingdom of God. But neither can it issue in any 

 discovery which contradicts the existence of that kingdom ; nor 

 can any mind in the light of the kingdom of God hesitate to con- 

 clude that if such seeming contradictions arise there is implied the 

 presence of error either as to facts or as to conclusions from the 

 facts.' These are valuable words and weighty testimonies. But 

 in a matter of this importance one must not forbear to point out 

 what may seem to be wanting even in the dicta of such men as the 

 two I have quoted. Neither of them has allowed the possibility 

 of error attaching itself to the utterances of more than one of the 

 two parties in such issues as those contemplated. Neither appears 

 to have thought of the cases in which religious men, if not theo- 

 logians, have brought woe on the world because of the offences 

 tbey have with ill-considered enunciations created. And whilst fully 

 sympathising with all that the Archbishop and Mr. Campbell 

 have said, I must say that they appear to me to have left some- 

 thing unsaid ; and this something may be wrapped up in the 

 caution that there may be faults on both sides. But at any rate 

 this Section cannot be considered a fit place for the correction of 

 errors save of the physical kind; and all other considerations are 

 for this week and in this place extraneous. In some other week 

 or in some other place it will be, if it has not already been, our 

 duty to give them our best attention. 



To come now to the kind of considerations which are the proper 

 business of Section D : let me say that for the discussion of Spon- 

 taneous Generation very refined means of observation, and, besides 

 these, very refined means of experimentation are necessary. And 

 I shall act in the spirit of the advice I have already alluded to as 

 given to the world by one of her greatest teachers, if I put before 

 you a simple but a yet undecided question for the solution of which 

 analogous means of a far less delicate character would appear to be, 

 but as yet have not proved themselves to be, sufficient. Thus shall 

 we come to see very plainly some of the bearings, and a few of the 

 difficulties, of the more difficult of the two questions. What an 

 uneducated person might acquiesce in hearing spoken of as spon- 

 taneous generation, takes place very constantly under our very eyes, 



