Thoughts on Causality. 



227 



absolutely inscrutable to the intellect of man * * * 

 Considered fundamentally, then, it is by the operation of an 

 insoluble mystery that life on earth is evolved, species differ- 

 entiated and mind unfolded from their prepotent elements 

 in the immeasurable past" (p. 91). 



The facts of the religious consciousness of man are re- 

 peatedly recognized. " The facts of religious feeling are 

 to me as certain as the facts of consciousness" (p. 24, Ap- 

 pleton & Co's edition). " Physical science cannot cover all 

 the demands of man's nature" (p. 42). Speaking of facts of 

 consciousness which have prescriptive rights quite as strong 

 as those of the understanding, he says: " There is also 

 that deep set feeling, which, since the earliest dawn of 

 history, and probably for ages prior to all history, incor- 

 porated itself in the religions of the world. You who have 

 escaped from these religions into the high and dry light 

 of the intellect, may deride them ; but in so doing, you 

 deride accidents of form merely and fail to touch the im- 

 movable basis of the religious sentiment in the nature of 

 man. To yield this sentiment reasonable satisfaction is 

 the problem of problems at the present hour " (p. 93). It 

 will be noticed that he relegates religion to the realm of 

 emotion. This force is something " capable of being 

 guided to noble issues in the region of emotion, which is 

 its proper and elevated sphere " (p. 93). Finally, while 

 claiming for science a rightful aud complete exemption 

 from the restraints of all religious theories, schemes or 

 systems, he asserts an equal right of the ethical nature to 

 free exercise. " The advance of man's understanding in 

 the path of knowledge, and those unquenchable claims of 

 his moral and emotional nature which the understanding 

 can never satisfy, are here equally set forth" (p. 97). In an 

 address delivered two months subsequently to his Belfast 

 manifesto, Professor Tyndal I, raising the question whether 

 there arouot in nature manifestations of knowledge and skill 

 superior to man's, replies, " My friends, the profession of 



