12 



To make it plainer concerning my intention. Religious people, 

 as such, have been, and still are constantly twitted with believing 

 that which cannot be comprehended, and which may in some 

 instances be opposed to the evidence of our senses, or to the dictates 

 of our reason. We are told that we ought to believe nothing 

 which cannot stand the test of logic and experiment. Well, so be 

 it, for the purposes of my remarks this evening. I wish to justify 

 to some extent our apparent unreasonableness by a retort on our 

 opponents after what is known as the tu quoque method, or amongst 

 less logical people, the " You're another" style of argument. It is 

 not I grant, the most dignified method, but it is often more or less 

 effective, and it is justified by the proverb, " They who live in glass 

 houses should never throw stones." 



Now it might be imagined from the persistence with which the 

 attack is made upon so-called rehgious credulity, that the scientific 

 creed is perfectly free from mystery, and that every article in it 

 may be readily proved and understood. It will be my endeavour 

 to show that such is not the case by any means ; that in some of 

 the scientific theories there is quite as much of mystery, and of 

 that which cannot be comprehended as in any article of religious 

 belief ; (a) that some of them are as contrary to all experience as 

 miracles are said to be ; to show also that if Christianity is dog- 

 matic, science is equally so, if not in a greater degree ; that if a 

 too implicit confidence be demanded by authority in Religion, a 

 no less impHcit reliance on scientific authority is required, [b) 



I think we have less encouragement to trust to authorities in 

 matters of science than we have to trust in religious authority, 

 since we find the theories confidently put forward for acceptance 

 so frequently breaking down. I may be told that scientific men 

 are always ready to acknowledge themselves in the wrong, when 

 shown to be so. In the generality of cases I grant it, but their 

 failures do not make them less dogmatic ; they immediately put 

 forward a new theory, and insist on its acceptance no less strongly 

 than before, while for aught we laymen can tell it may fail in a 

 similar way. But to hasten to the points more immediately before 

 us, let me mention now one or two articles in the creed of science, 

 and endeavour to make good my assertion, that whether founded 

 in truth or not, they are very difficult of acceptance. 



(a) " The theory of the universe which reduces universal causation to the puUings 

 and pushings of the final particles of matter, and which we are so often called upon 

 to believe — under pain, as it were, of intellectual reprobation— offers unspeakably 

 greater difficulties to the intellect than any form of Theism with which I am ac- 

 quainted."— W, S. Lilly, 19th Century, August, 1888. 



{b) " I see no other way for you, laymen, than to fcrust the scientific man with the 

 choice of his inquiries ; he stands before the tribunal of his peers, and by their 

 verdict on his labours you ought to abide."— (Tyndall on Light, p. 66). 



