THE BELFAST ADDRESS 



to that most powerful of passions the 

 amatory passion as one which, when it 

 first occurs, is antecedent to all relative 

 experience whatever ; and we may press 

 its claim as being at least as ancient, and 

 as valid, as that of the understanding 

 itself. Then there are such things woven 

 into the texture of man as the feeling of 

 Awe, Reverence, Wonder and not alone 

 the sexual love just referred to, but the 

 love of the beautiful, physical, and moral, 

 in Nature, Poetry, and Art. There is 

 also that deep-set feeling, which, since 

 the earliest dawn of history, and pro- 

 bably for ages prior to all history, incor- 

 porated itself in the religions of the 

 world. You, who have escaped from 

 these religions into the high-and-dry light 

 of the intellect, may deride them ; but 

 in so doing you deride accidents of form 

 merely, and fail to touch the immovable 

 basis of the religious sentiment in the 

 nature of man. To yield this sentiment 

 reasonable satisfaction is the problem of 

 problems at the present hour. And 

 grotesque in relation to scientific culture 

 as many of the religions of the world 

 have been and are dangerous, nay, 

 destructive, to the dearest privileges of 

 freemen as some of them undoubtedly 

 have been, and would, if they could, be 

 again it will be wise to recognise them 

 as the forms of a force, mischievous if 

 permitted to intrude on the region of 

 objective knowledge, over which it holds 

 no command, but capable of adding, in 

 the region of poetry and emotion, inward 

 completeness and dignity to man. 



Feeling, I say again, dates from as old 

 an origin and as high a source as intelli- 

 gence, and it equally demands its range 

 of play. The wise teacher of humanity 

 will recognise the necessity of meeting 

 this demand, rather than of resisting it 

 on account of errors and absurdities of 

 form. What we should resist, at all 

 hazards, is the attempt made in the past, 

 and now repeated, to found upon this 

 elemental bias of man's nature a system 

 which should exercise despotic sway over 

 his intellect. I have no fear of such a 

 consummation. Science has already to 



some extent leavened the world ; it will 

 leaven it more and more. I should look 

 upon the mild light of science breaking 

 in upon the minds of the youth of Ireland, 

 and strengthening gradually to the per- 

 fect day, as a surer check to any intel- 

 lectual or spiritual tyranny which may 

 threaten this island than the laws of 

 princes or the swords of emperors. We 

 fought and won our battle even in the 

 Middle Ages : should we doubt the issue 

 of another conflict with our broken foe ? 



The impregnable position of science 

 may be described in a few words. We 

 claim, and we shall wrest from theology, 

 the entire domain of cosmological theory. 

 All schemes and systems which thus 

 infringe upon the domain of science must, 

 in so far as they do this, submit to its 

 control, and relinquish all thought of 

 controlling- it. Acting otherwise proved 

 always disastrous in the past, and it is 

 simply fatuous to-day. Every system 

 which would escape the fate of an 

 organism too rigid to adjust itself to its 

 environment must be plastic to the 

 extent that the growth of knowledge 

 demands. When this truth has been 

 thoroughly taken in, rigidity will be 

 relaxed, exclusiveness diminished, things 

 now deemed essential will be dropped, 

 and elements now rejected will be assimi- 

 lated. The lifting of the life is the 

 essential point, and as long as dogma- 

 tism, fanaticism, and intolerance are kept 

 out, various modes of leverage may be 

 employed to raise life to a higher level. 



Science itself not unfrequently derives 

 motive power from an ultra-scientific 

 source. Some of its greatest discoveries 

 have been made under the stimulus of a 

 non-scientific ideal. This was the case 

 among the ancients, and it has been so 

 among ourselves. Mayer, Joule, and 

 Colding, whose names are associated 

 with the greatest of modern generalisa- 

 tions, were thus influenced. With his 

 usual insight, Lange at one place remarks 

 that "it is not always the objectively 

 correct and intelligible that helps man 

 most, or leads most quickly to the 

 fullest and truest knowledge. As the 



