APOLOGY FOR THE BELFAST ADDRESS 



43 



shelter, and try to persuade others to do 

 the same. The unstable and the weak 

 have yielded and will yield to this per- 

 suasion, and they to whom repose is 

 sweeter than the truth. But I would 

 exhort you to refuse the offered shelter, 

 and to scorn the base repose to accept, 

 if the choice be forced upon you, com- 

 motion before stagnation, the breezy leap 

 of the torrent before the foetid stillness 

 of the swamp. In the course of this 

 Address I have touched on debatable 

 questions, and led you over what will be 

 deemed dangerous ground and this 

 partly with the view of telling you that, 

 as regards these questions, science 

 claims unrestricted right of search. It 

 is not to the point to say that the views 

 of Lucretius and Bruno, of Darwin and 

 Spencer, may be wrong. Here I should 

 agree with you, deeming it indeed 

 certain that these views will undergo 

 modification. But the point is that, 

 whether right or wrong, we claim the 

 right to discuss them. For science, 

 however, no exclusive claim is here 

 made ; you are not urged to erect it into 

 an idol. The inexorable advance of 

 man's understanding in the path of 

 knowledge, and those unquenchable 

 claims of his moral and emotional nature 

 which the understanding can never satisfy, 



are here equally set forth. The world em- 

 braces not only a Newton, but a Shake- 

 speare not only a Boyle, but a Raphael 

 not only a Kant, but a Beethoven 

 not only a Darwin, but a Carlyle. Not 

 in each of these, but in all, is human 

 nature whole. They are not opposed, 

 but supplementary not mutually exclu^ 

 sive, but reconcilable. And if, unsatis- 

 fied with them all, the human mind, with 

 the yearning of a pilgrim for his distant 

 home, will still turn to the Mystery from 

 which it has emerged, seeking so to 

 fashion it as to give unity to thought and 

 faith ; so long as this is done, not only 

 without intolerance or bigotry of any 

 kind, but with the enlightened recogni- 

 tion that ultimate fixity of conception is 

 here unattainable, and ' that each suc- 

 ceeding age must be held free to fashion 

 the mystery in accordance with its own 

 needs then, casting aside all the restric- 

 tions of Materialism, I would affirm this 

 to be a field for the noblest exercise of 

 what, in contrast with the knowing facul- 

 ties, may be called the creative faculties 

 of man. Here, however, I touch a theme 

 too great for me to handle, but which 

 will assuredly be handled by the loftiest 

 minds, when you and I, like streaks of 

 morning cloud, shall have melted into 

 the infinite azure of the past. 



APOLOGY FOR THE BELFAST ADDRESS 1 



1874 



THE world has been frequently informed 

 of late that I have raised up against 

 myself a host of enemies ; and consider- 

 ing, with few exceptions, the deliverances 

 of the Press, and more particularly of the 

 religious Press, I am forced to admit 

 that the statement is only too true. I 

 derive some comfort, nevertheless, from 



the reflection of Diogenes, transmitted 

 to us by Plutarch, that " he who would 

 be saved must have good friends or 

 violent enemies ; and that he is best off 

 who possesses both." This "best" con- 

 dition, I have reason to believe, is mine. 

 Reflecting on the fraction I have 

 read of recent remonstrances, appeals, 



1 The word "Apology" is here used in its original sense, as signifying "Vi 

 "Defence"; no retractation is implied. ED. 



Vindication' 



