Xxu1 REPORT—1874. 
can be derived. You may say, or think, that this issue of consciousness 
from the clash of atoms is not more incongruous than the flash of light 
from the union of oxygen and hydrogen. But I beg to say that it is. 
For such incongruity as the flash ‘possesses is that which I now force 
upon your attention. The flash is an affair of consciousness, the objec- 
tive counterpart of which is a vibration, It is a flash only by your 
interpretation. You are the cause of the apparent incongruity; and yow are 
the thing that puzzles me. I need not remind you that the great Leibnitz 
felt the difficulty which I feel, and that to get rid of this monstrous deduc- 
tion of life from death he displaced your atoms by his monads, which were 
more or less perfect niirrors of the universe, and out of the summation and 
integration of which he supposed all the phenomena of life—sentient, in- 
tellectual, and emotional—to arise. 
“Your difficulty, then, as I see you are ready to admit, is quite as great as 
mine. You cannot satisfy the human understanding in its demand for logical 
continuity between molecular processes and the phenomena of conscious- 
ness. This is a rock on which materialism must inevitably split whenever it 
pretends to be a complete philosophy of life. What is the moral, my Lucretian? 
You and I are not likely to indulge in ill-temper in the discussion of these 
great topics, where we see so much room for honest differences of opinion. 
But there are people of less wit, or more bigotry (I say it with humility) 
on both sides, who are ever ready to mingle anger and vituperation with such 
discussions. ‘There are, for example, writers of note and influence at the 
present day who are not ashamed to assume the ‘deep personal sin’ of a 
great logician to be the cause of his unbelief in a theologic dogma. And 
there are others who hold that we, who cherish our noble Bible, wrought as 
it has been into the constitution of our forefathers, and by inheritance into 
us, must necessarily be hypocritical and insincere. Let us disavow and dis- 
countenance such people, cherishing the unswerving faith that what is good 
and true in both our arguments will be preserved for the benefit of humanity, 
while all that is bad or false will disappear.” 
I hold the Bishop’s reasoning to be unanswerable, and his liberality to be 
worthy of imitation. 
It is worth remarking that in one respect the Bishop was a product of 
his age. Long previous to his day the nature of the soul had been so 
favourite and general a topic of discussion, that, when the students of the 
Italian Universities wished to know the leanings of a new Professor, they 
at once requested him to lecture upon the soul. About the time of Bishop 
Butler the question was not only agitated but extended. It was seen by 
the clear-witted men who entered this arena that many of their best 
arguments applied equally to brutes and men, The Bishop’s arguments 
were of this character. He saw it, admitted it, accepted the conse- 
quences, and boldly embraced the whole animal world in his scheme of im- 
mortality. 
Bishop Butler accepted with unwavering trust the chronology of the Old 
Testament, describing it as “confirmed by the natural and civil history of 
the world, collected from common historians, from the state of the earth, and 
from the late inventions of arts and sciences.” These words mark progress ; 
and they must seem somewhat hoary to the Bishop’s successors of to-day*, 
* Only to some ; for there are dignitaries who even now speak of the earth’s rocky crust 
as so much building material prepared for man at the Creation. Surely it is time that 
his loose language should cease. 
