PEESIDENX'S ADDEESS. 205 



are those of his article in tlie ''Fortnightly Eeview" for IToveni- 

 ber, 1875, and of his Address to the Midland Institute last Oc- 

 tober, he said " He trusted that in them many would find peace." 

 But what power has this new gospel to overthrow the Gospel of 

 eighteen centuries ago ? In his Belfast Address he insisted that 

 everything proceeded from Matter — that Matter was the sole and 

 supreme existence in the universe. But then he intimated that 

 we must enlarge our ideas of Matter, so as to take all other things 

 in. In this way it is possible to be a Materialist on very easy 

 terms; and I need not point out that, with this condition, not- 

 withstanding the immense stir his Belfast Address made, he 

 really left every debateable question just where it was before. 



In his Article in the ''Fortnightly Eeview" he admits that 

 "The world will have Eeligion of some kind," and so knocks 

 away altogether the foundation on which he seemed desirous of 

 standing. For if "the world will have Eeligion of some kind," 

 it must, on his own principles, be because Eeligion is necessary 

 to the world, because it is, in other words, a need of human na- 

 ture, because some Eeligion is true. Again, in the last sentence 

 of the Article, he demolishes even more completely his whole 

 theory of negation, for he affirms that "He looks forward to a 

 better time, when there will be purer and mightier minds than 

 ours, purer and mightier partly because of their deeper know- 

 ledge of matter, and their more faithful conformity to its laws," 

 "Without waiting to dwell upon the obvious fact that there must 

 be something else than matter involved in man, whatever Pro- 

 fessor Tyndall's definition of matter be, if man is a rebel to mat- 

 ter's laws, if he does not conform himself to them, if he is not 

 faithful to them, it is clear that the Article leaves all the great 

 questions regarding Eeligion precisely where they were, and men 

 still have to seek what is the true Eeligion, what is the Eeligion 

 which will satisfy the Avorld's need, appease its cra^dng, and 

 teach it the laws, and supply it with motives, adequate cuough, 

 and powerful enough, to induce it to keep the laws, which it 

 ought to observe, but to which it has hitherto proved itself, on 

 the testimony of Professor Tyndall himself, more or less unfaith- 

 ful. 



