197 



in the soul_, let the affections by all means be invoked ; but 

 they must not be permitted to colour our reports,, or to influence 

 our acceptance of reports of occurrences in external nature/^* 

 The occurrence in external nature before us is the rearing of 

 a crystal of common salt. We at once admit that, so far as 

 this mere fact is concerned, the feelings can have little to do. 

 But Mr. Tyndall reports not only an occurrence, but states 

 something entirely different from an occurrence. He affirms 

 the idea of self-determining power as an attribute of a mole- 

 cule ! There is no question as to the occurrence ; it is the 

 doctrine, not the fact, which is of moment in the case. Self- 

 determining power, such as Herbert Spencer denies to mindj 

 is here predicated of a material atom ! By this doctrine the 

 Author of Nature is excluded from Nature ! Have the affec- 

 tions no claim here? If not, how can they be rationally 

 invoked to kindle religion in the soul ? If there is no living God 

 to be known, how can there be religion, either with or with- 

 out fire ? So if that God is to be shut out from the universe 

 with which physical science has to do, where else is He to be 

 sought for ? And, moreover, if 'there be no God, from whence 

 is the moral sense to derive its quickening ? It is, to say the 

 least of it, a grievous mistake to imagine that the distressing 

 feeling which rises in the soul in view of such ideas as Mr. 

 Tyndall here promulgates is the result of prejudice or priest- 

 craft. You may as well imagine that any other sensation of the 

 soul is the creation of such causes. The sense which revolts 

 at the denial of God in the changes of material nature is 

 beyond all question a momentous part of the soul of man, and 

 never can be safely ignored or mistaken for a moment. 



The culture of this same moral feeling is essential to the 

 life of nations. If a people show to a great extent indiffer- 

 ence to the great principles of morality, and hence spread 

 mischief and misery in society, it will be found more important 

 to cultivate their moral sense than merely to expound morals 

 after an intellectual method, and to condemn their immorality. 

 That culture will be secured by an education which tends to 

 draw out the capacity of moral feeling itself, rather than by 

 one which drily gives them the rules of conduct. 



The idea which above all else is essential to the culture of 

 the moral sense is that of the unchanging right. As the 

 diversity of view which prevails regarding what is really right 

 does not at all affect the reality of the moral sense, so neither 

 does it affect the reality of this vital moral idea. There is one, 

 and only one, best route from Liverpool to New York, though 



Fragments of Science, p. 48. 



