118 



observation, and takes therefore a most incomplete view of 

 truth and reality. 



25. Dr. Tyndall tells us that one of his critics made a mis- 

 take in attributing wit to him for saying that he took with 



And of the Switzerland two volumes of poetry, Goethe^s 



widest range Farbenlehve, and the work on Logic by Mr. Bain.''' 

 of facts. Possibly his critic supposed Dr.Tyndall to regard logic 

 as light reading, or had met with logical treatises of a fascinating 

 ambition, and more allied toimagination than to strictly "rationar^ 

 literature. If so, we can certainly sympathize with the critic, 

 and see how he came to misunderstand Dr. TyndalTs ambiguous 

 sentence. But we shall intend no wit,'' and fear no mistake 

 however, in pointing to poetry as a witness to facts, and facts 

 which will refuse to be ignored. We ask men to look for instance 

 at the Psalms of David — tliose marvellous poems of the heart of 

 man addressed to the ear of God. Hear my prayer, O God ! " 

 " From the ends of the earth I cry unto thee ! " O thou that 

 hearest prayer, to thee shall all flesh come ! " Such are utterances 

 of human nature always calling aloud for Divine intervention; 

 and the book that contains them has been the world's hand- 

 book of devotion, more known and used and loved not only 

 than any other book, but more than whole libraries, these 

 three thousand years. 



What a book of facts is that Book of Psalms ! What a key 

 it is to the history of a vast moral world, known in its fulness to 

 Him only who ^^seeth in secret." Take Dr. Tyndall's word, that 

 in a world of necessary causation, all this means nothing — that 

 prayer is an ^' emotional " operation of so unreal a kind, that a 

 decade (p. 45) ought to see the end of it, and what are we to 

 make of all these, the widest range of the facts of our nature, 

 in the midst of which every attempt at induction is so insig- 

 nificant and vain ! 



26. Now, we are not complaining that men of mechanical 

 or chemical science do not make it their business at the same 



Facts most ^i"^® moral philosophers, and students of the 



UDfairiy ig- facts of humau nature : but we have a right to com- 



nored 



plain of tiieir meddling with what they will not take 

 the trouble to understand or investigate. We have a right to 

 complain of their practically ignoring facts which they acknow- 

 ledge to be CO- extensive with our existence (p. 46), or treating 

 them as unrealities. If it be a fact, as none will question, that 

 wherever man is found, in some way ^' behold he prayeth," we 

 have a right to complain at the attempt of chemists to teach the 

 generation now rising up, and teach with a supercilious air of 

 authority too, that the whole universe, of which we form a part. 



