APOLOGY FOR THE BELFAST ADDRESS 



45 



and healthier thought it ever dissolves 

 and disappears, as offering no solution 

 of the mystery in which we dwell, and 

 of which we form a part." 



With reference to this honest and 

 reasonable utterance my censor exclaims : 

 "This is a most remarkable passage. 

 Much as we dislike seasoning polemics 

 with strong words, we assert that this 

 apology only tends to affix with links 

 of steel, to the name of Professor Tyndall, 

 the dread imputation against which he 

 struggles." 



Here we have a very fair example of 

 subjective religious vigour. But my 

 quarrel with such exhibitions is that they 

 do not always represent objective fact. 

 No atheistic reasoning can, I hold, dis- 

 lodge religion from the human heart. 

 Logic cannot deprive us of life, and 

 religion is life to the religious. As an 

 experience of consciousness it is beyond 

 the assaults of logic. But the religious 

 life is often projected in external forms 

 I use the word in its widest sense 

 and this embodiment of the religious 

 sentiment will have to bear more and 

 more, as the world becomes more en- 

 lightened, the stress of scientific tests. 

 We must be careful of projecting into 

 external nature that which belongs to 

 ourselves. My critic commits this mis- 

 take : he feels, and takes delight in 

 feeling, that I am struggling, and he 

 obviously experiences the most exquisite 

 pleasures of "the muscular sense" in 

 holding me down. His feelings are as 

 real as if his imagination of what mine 

 are were equally real. His picture of 

 my " struggles " is, however, a mere 

 delusion. I do not struggle. I do not 

 fear the charge of Atheism ; nor should 

 I even disavow it, in reference to any 

 definition of the Supreme which he, or 

 his order, would be likely to frame. His 

 " links " and his " steel " and his "dread 

 imputations " are, therefore, even more 

 unsubstantial than my "streaks of morn- 

 ing cloud," and they may be permitted 

 to vanish together. 



These minor and more purely personal 



matters at an end, the weightier allegation 

 remains, that at Belfast I misused my 

 position by quitting the domain of 

 science, and making an unjustifiable raid 

 into the domain of theology. This I 

 fail to see. Laying aside abuse, I hope 

 my accusers will consent to reason with 

 me. Is it not lawful for a scientific man 

 to speculate on the antecedents of the 

 solar system ? Did Kant, Laplace, and 

 William Herschel quit their legitimate 

 spheres when they prolonged the intellec- 

 tual vision beyond the boundary of 

 experience, and propounded the nebular 

 theory ? Accepting that theory as prob- 

 able, is it not permitted to a scientific 

 man to follow up, in idea, the series of 

 changes associated with the condensation 

 of the nebulae ; to picture the successive 

 detachment of planets and moons, and 

 the relation of all of them to the sun ? 

 If I look upon our earth, with its orbital- 

 revolution and axial rotation, as one 

 small issue of the process which made 

 the solar system what it is, will any theo- 

 logian deny my right to entertain and 

 express this theoretic view ? Time was 

 when a multitude of theologians would 

 have been found to do so when that 

 arch-enemy of science which now vaunts, 

 its tolerance would have made a speedy 

 end of the man who might venture to 

 publish any opinion of the kind. But 

 that time, unless the world is caught 

 strangely slumbering, is for ever past. 



As regards inorganic nature, then, we 

 may traverse, without let or hindrance^ 

 the whole distance which separates the 

 nebulae from the worlds of to-day. But 

 only a few years ago this now conceded 

 ground of science was theological ground. 

 I could by no means regard this as the 

 final and sufficient concession of theo- 

 logy ; and, at Belfast, I thought it not 

 only my right but my duty to state that, 

 as regards the organic world, we must 

 enjoy the freedom which we have already 

 won in regard to the inorganic. I could 

 not discern the shred of a title-deed 

 which gave any man, or any class of men, 

 the right to open the door of one of these 

 worlds to the scientific searcher and to 



