150 



sketching^' which prevails just now on some of the highest 

 subjects, where exact truth is most wanted. Does not Dr. 

 Tyndall know that the human mind is such that it will at last 

 discredit and distrust an emotion which clashes with what 

 it has found to be true ? 



29. Our essayist partly explains perhaps his reasons for adopt- 

 ing his present style of treating these subjects. He thinks that 



Our appeal philosophy is forsakiug its ancient metaphysical 

 is to reason and chanucls — aud that (if wc may try our hand at 

 continuing his metaphor), he may deal with its 

 shallows sportively among the flowery meadows. We think he 

 is mistaken. We will change his metaphor a little. The battle 

 of thought will ultimately rage in those deep places which come 

 close up to the walls of science ; and a confident style of 

 writing, even when accompanied by the great merits of Dr. 

 Tyndall, will not be a match for careful thinking on great 

 subjects, — thinking right on,^^ as straight as mathematics, — 

 with good natural Barbara Celarent" at hand to help. 



"We think, too, it is the part of a just philosophical inquirer 

 to represent even those from whom he differs with an equity 

 which they themselves will recognize. We wholly refuse the 

 antagonism which Dr. Tyndall sometimes affirms, and always 

 implies, between men of science, as such, and men of prayer. 

 We feel it to be offensive in purely scientific addresses to 

 have the statement that the Lord God formed man of the 

 dust^' called a grand old legend (p. 97), or the words God 

 saw all that he had made, and behold it was very good,^^ a 



grand old story (p. 99), or to have the same term, "grand 

 fellow'^ (p. 74), applied to Kepler, apparently to link his illus- 

 trious name with the spirit and tone of Science against Prayer. 

 As to this last reference, does not Dr. Tyndall know that Kepler 

 was eminently a man of prayer, and was not only an enthusi- 

 astic theologian (like Sir Isaac Newton and John Locke), but 

 worked out all his sublime deductions as acts of devotion'^ — 

 AYill Dr. Tyndall accept Kepler's laws as results of prayer? He 

 must : for certainly Brewster says that John Kepler prayed 

 for Divine help and guidance in all his special scientific investi- 

 gations. If the working men of Dundee^' had been told of this, 

 they might not readily have thought prayer so contemptible. 



30. We cannot help thinking that men of science and men 

 of prayer might afford to shake hands together over Kepler's 



Rivalries of laws. Wc spcak of thosc who, like Dr. Tyndall, are 

 IcfeS^houid worthy of the name, for as to others, the inferior 

 spirits of the scientific world, who simply raise a 

 chorus of laughter at the hope and thought that science may one 



