THE BELFAST ADDRESS 



logic; but it is impossible not to feel the 

 ethic glow with which his lecture con- 

 cludes. There is, moreover, a very noble 

 strain of eloquence in his description of 

 the steadfastness of the atoms : "Natural 

 causes, as we know, are at work, which 

 tend to modify, if they do not at length 

 destroy, all the arrangements and dimen- 

 sions of the earth and the whole solar 

 system. But though in the course of 

 ages catastrophes have occurred and 

 may yet occur in the heavens, though 

 ancient systems may be dissolved and 

 new systems evolved out of their ruins, 

 the molecules out of which these systems 

 are built the foundation stones of the 

 material universe remain unbroken and 

 unworn." 



The atomic doctrine, in whole or in 

 part, was entertained by Bacon, Des- 

 cartes, Hobbes, Locke, Newton, Boyle, 

 and their successors, until the chemical 

 law of multiple proportions enabled 

 Dalton to confer upon it an entirely 

 new significance. In our day there are 

 secessions from the theory, but it still 

 stands firm. Loschmidt, Stoney, and 

 Sir William Thomson have sought to 

 determine the sizes of the atoms, or 

 rather to fix the limits between which 

 their sizes lie ; while the discourses of 

 Williamson and Maxwell delivered in 

 Bradford in 1873 illustrate the present 

 hold of the doctrine upon the foremost 

 scientific minds. In fact, it may be 

 doubted whether, wanting this funda- 

 mental conception, a theory of the 

 material universe is capable of scientific 

 statement. 



5- 



NINETY years subsequent to Gassendi 

 the doctrine of bodily instruments, as it 

 may be called, assumed immense im- 

 portance in the hands of Bishop Butler, 

 who, in his famous Analogy of Religion, 

 developed, from his own point of view, 

 and with consummate sagacity, a similar 

 idea. The Bishop still influences many 

 superior minds ; and it will repay us to 

 dwell for a moment on his views. He 



draws the sharpest distinction between 

 our real selves and our bodily instru- 

 ments. He does not, as far as I 

 remember, use the word "soul," possibly 

 because the term was so hackneyed in 

 his day, as it had been for many genera- 

 tions previously. But he speaks of 

 "living powers," "perceiving or percipient 

 powers," "moving agents, ""ourselves, "in 

 the same sense as we should employ the 

 term " soul." He dwells upon the fact 

 that limbs may be removed, and mortal 

 diseases assail the body, the mind, 

 almost up to the moment of death, re- 

 maining clear. He refers to sleep and 

 to swoon, where the " living powers " are 

 suspended but not destroyed. He con- 

 siders it quite as easy to conceive of 

 existence out of our bodies as in them ; 

 that we may animate a succession of 

 bodies, the dissolution of all of them 

 having no more tendency to dissolve 

 our real selves, or " deprive us of living 

 faculties the faculties of perception and 

 action than the dissolution of any 

 foreign matter which we are capable of 

 receiving impressions from, or making 

 use of for the common occasions of life." 

 This is the key of the Bishop's position : 

 " our organised bodies are no more a 

 part of ourselves than any other matter 

 around us." In proof of this he calls 

 attention to the use of glasses, which 

 "prepare objects" for the "percipient 

 power " exactly as the eye does. The 

 eye itself is no more percipient than the 

 glass ; is quite as much the instrument 

 of the true self, and also as foreign to 

 the true self, as the glass is. " And if 

 we see with our eyes only in the same 

 manner as we do with glasses, the like 



| may justly be concluded from analogy 



i of all our senses." 



Lucretius, as you are aware, reached a 

 precisely opposite conclusion : and it 

 certainly would be interesting, if not 

 profitable, to us all to hear what he 

 would or could urge in opposition to the 

 reasoning of the Bishop. As a brief 

 discussion of the point will enable us to 

 see the bearings of an important question, 

 I will here permit a disciple of Lucretius 



