270 THE YERY KEY. H. WACE^ D.D.^ ON SOME OF 



followers. Of all the influences by which the traditional 

 Christian belief was then menaced, a great deal, to say the 

 least, has disappeared before the discoveries and the discussions 

 of those fifty years, while the Christian Belief still holds its own 

 among us, and in so Die respects, I think, is in a still stronger 

 position. In this survey I may claim to speak as something 

 more than a spectator, for it was my duty and my privilege to 

 take some responsible part in the course of the debate, and I 

 have had some anxious experience of the difficulties involved in 

 the struggle. I do not presume to think that I can appreciate 

 the full bearings of the great questions raised by the recent 

 advances of science. But it may be permissible for one who 

 has gone through the experiences to which I refer to attempt to 

 estimate some of the broader and more practical results of the 

 movements of scientific thought. 



To illustrate, then, the attitude of the most popular repre- 

 sentatives of the science of the early years of this period, it will 

 be found interesting to refer to an article in the Quarterly 

 -Review for January, 1878, entitled " Scientific Lectures — their 

 Use and Abuse." It was occasioned by an address given in 1877 

 by Professor Tyndall at the Birmingham and Midland Institute ; 

 and it is an indignant protest against the use which the 

 Professor made of the occasion to assert some of the scientific 

 views he entertained in opposition lo current Christian beliefs. 

 He is dwelling on the law^ of the Conservation of Energy, and 

 illustrates it by the well-known example of a merchant receiving 

 a telegram, wdiich instantly occasions a complex series of 

 actions, which are set in motion from the central nervous 

 system. Some persons, he says, would reply that the impulse 

 of all this force originated from the human soul. But he 

 argues that this is an attempt to explain the known by the 

 unknown. We cannot, he says, " mentally visualise the soul as 

 an entity distinct from the body," and the use of the very term 

 " Soul " is therefore unscientific. From the side of science all 

 that we are warranted in stating is that the terror, hope, sensa- 

 tion and calculation of the supposed merchant are physical 

 phenomena, produced by, or associated with, the molecular 

 processes set up by waves of light in a previously prepared 

 brain." But he supposes the question asked whether the mer- 

 chant's consciousness of all these activities can be explained on 

 this purely scientific basis. He asks, in fact, "What is the 

 causal connection, if any, between the objective and subjective, 

 between molecular motions and states of consciousness" ? and 

 his answer is, " I do not see the connection, nor have I as yet 



