212 



FACTS AND FANCIES 



notice, and that the most contradictory utter- 

 ances are given forth. Tyndall — by no means 

 the most foggy of the agnostics — may afford 

 an instance. He remarks respecting the phil- 

 osophers of antiquity : * " The experiences which 

 formed the weft and woof of their theories were 

 drawn, not from the study of nature, but from 

 that whici lay much closer to them — the ob- 

 servation of man. . . . Their theories accord- 

 ingly took an anthropomorphic form." Here 

 we see that in the view of the writer man is 

 distinct from and outside of nature, and so much 

 out of harmony with it that the observation of 

 him leads to fdlse conclusions, stigmatized, ac- 

 cordingly, as "anthropomorphic." In this case 

 man must be supernatural, and preternatural as 

 well. But it is Tyndall's precise object to show 

 us that there is nothing supernatural either in 

 man or elsewhere. The contradiction is an in- 

 structive example of the delusions which some- 

 times pass for science. 



If, with Tyndall, we are to place man outside 

 of nature, then the human mind at once be- 

 comes i"o us a supernatural intelligence. But 

 truth forbids such a conclusion. The reason 

 of man, however beyond the intelligence of 



* Belfast Address. 



