139 



goodness, to comment. It bears the very attractive title of 

 Fragments of Science for Unscientific People. In the class 

 so modestly, it may be compassionately, described, all perhaps 

 are willing to be included who do not set up as original investi- 

 gators and authorities ; and Dr. Tyndairs book assumes, after all, 

 no degrading amount of ignorance in his readers ; some, perhaps, 

 will even be flattered by the degree of knowledge, and the 

 mental power, attributed to the " unscientific." 



6. The first three essays, as we may for convenience call them, 

 are on the " Constitution of Nature," on " Prayer and Natural 

 Law," and on "Miracles and Special Providences." 



The principles of the volume are expressed in these 4ke*irto°the 

 pages, and to these our primary attention will be ^osrtion.^^ 

 given, though we shall by no means overlook the 

 rest, as illustrating the same views, and pervaded, we must 

 say, by the same spirit. If we ventured at all on criticism as 

 to any scientific statements laid before us, it would not be 

 because we differ from Dr. Tyndall, whatever he may suppose, 

 as to the uniformity of natural law. The believer in Revelation 

 is quite as ready as other men to affirm of the whole pheno- 

 menal universe, that which Scripture declares of the starry 

 heavens, — "He hath given them a law which shall not be 

 broken." What we shall rather have to complain of in our 

 essayist is his want of thoroughness in the appeal to facts ; and 

 we must be forgiven if we also demur to the ad captandum form 

 in which he states his conclusions, and the irregular unscien- 

 tific, and illogical appearance of his moral inferences. 



7. What we mean by the " want of thoroughness in the appeal 

 to facts," is that Dr. Tyndall practically forgets that our ex- 

 perience brings us in contact with other realities, An imperfect 

 besides those natural, mechanical, and chemical gPPJ*/^*°gP^5^' 

 facts with which his science is concerned ; and that 



he thus unavoidably gives a fictitious prominence to his own 

 specialities, when he would introduce them, surreptitiouslj^, we 

 should think, into the sphere of morals and religion. In the 

 description of the " constitution of nature," attention, we 

 would observe, is not directed, specifically, to the human body, 

 its form or functions, but rather to the general framework of 

 the universe, of which it at length is summarily said, that " the 

 whole stock of energy in the world consists of attractions, repul- 

 sions, and motions" (p. 26) ; and yet, as if it were Dr. Tyn- 

 dalFs main object, he passes at once from this to ethics, 



8. He had previously taught us, in his first sentence, that 

 we can only "conceive of space as infinite," and that "the 



* Psalm cxlviii. 6, " Pass beyond." 

 L 2 



