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you, with regret, that such a line of procedure is chargeable upon 

 the learned President of the British Association in regard to his 

 now memorable address. In giving expression to this conviction, 

 I plead guiltless of the odium theologicum, as well as of any other 

 unworthy motive, consciously entertained. I claim for the remarks 

 which I am about to make, that they are dictated pre-eminently, if 

 not altogether, by regard for the interests of pure science, for the 

 promotion of which the British Association was originally estab- 

 lished. If the platform of that Institution and its presidential chair 

 are to be esteemed as lawfully convertible into high places whence 

 attacks may be made with impunity, and without contravention, on 

 the religious convictions of almost all its members, if not of the 

 entire community, then my decided opinion is that, so far as the 

 countenance and support of that community are concerned, the 

 days of the British Association are numbered, and deservedly so. 

 That the sentiments which I have ventured to express regarding 

 the document in question are warranted I now proceed to show as 

 briefly as possible. 



I have already expressed my opinion as to the impropriety of 

 debating a religious question in a scientific arena. Professor 

 Tyndall, so far from shrinking from the responsibility of so doing, 

 has most deliberately, and, I must add, in my judgment, most 

 needlessly, so acted. The existence and strong influence of 

 the religious dement in our nature is insisted on at page 30 of 

 his address. Ascribing the existence of this integral portion 

 of our mental constitution, as of the understanding and all others, 

 " to the play between organism and environment through cosmic 

 ranges of time," the learned professor proceeds to place " the 

 immovable basis of the religious sentiment in the emotional nature 

 of man." And when he further states that " to yield this sentiment 

 reasonable satisfaction is the problem of problems of the present 

 hour," it might well be imagined that the utmost caution ought to 

 have been employed by one occupying the elevated and, at the 

 same time, most delicate position in which he was at that moment 



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