267 
68. By this beautiful and adaptive law the ice necessarily 
becomes lighter than water, and so, floating at the top, all the 
inhabitants of the freezing water are saved from destruction ; 
for if ice were heavier than water it would fall to the bottom, 
and thus gradually the entire water would be frozen. 
69. Professor Tyndall states that Count Rumford's inference 
is unsound, because he described the property of freezing water 
as the only instance in nature, while it is now known that iron 
and bismuth do the same thing; that is to say, they “ require 
more room in the solid crystalline condition than in the adjacent 
molten condition” ; and he remarks, “ There is no fish to be 
taken care of here, still the f contrivance ’ is the same.” Now, 
surely this is shallow and inconclusive reasoning. Because 
the law mentioned obtains when we melt two metals, there- 
fore there is no contrivance when it is applied to all living 
things in the waters of the world where water freezes ? Count 
Rumford was talking eloquently about the evident design 
of a Providence. Professor Tyndall thinks that because the 
law exists where the philosopher can see no contrivance or 
design — where, in fact, it would be impossible to see either — viz., 
in the crucible of the laboratory — it cannot be providential or 
designing when applied to the preservation of myriads of living 
things ; and he boncludes his unscientific, unphilosophic, and 
gratuitously irreligious criticism by remarking : “ But both life 
and its conditions set forth the operations of inscrutable Power. 
We know not its origin, we know not its end. And the pre- 
sumption, if not the degradation, rests with those who place 
upon the throne of the universe a magnified image of themselves, 
and make its doings a mere colossal imitation of their own.”* 
70. Of course the philosopher who writes thus does not 
believe in his Bible. I should be sorry to make such a state- 
ment lightly, but I will quote the writer's own words. 
“ Man himself, they say, has made his appearance in the 
world since that time of ice (the Glacial period) ; but of the real 
period and manner of man's introduction little is professed to 
be known, since to make them square with science, new mean- 
ings have been found, for the beautiful muths and stories in the 
Bible ” 
71. It certainly appears to me that a philosophy which places 
the Bible in such terms before the youth of the world must 
prove most injurious to the healthy settlement of “ religious 
thought,” which is at all times in the young susceptible of false 
impressions. Such philosophers altogether forget that they 
have to prove that the Bible is untrue. I much question whether 
* Op, cit, p. 125 ; Op. cit, pp. 151-2. 
