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lighting of centuries, mingled with many defeats, and held 
together not without much jealous care and supervision of the 
defensive outposts. Now we see that even so great a general as 
Julius Caesar, when he attempted the conquest of Britain, was 
baffled in his enterprise, not so much by the bravery of the 
inhabitants as by a phenomenon on which he had not reckoned, — 
the remarkable rise and fall of the tide in the estuary of Rich- 
borough ; * a phenomenon which, from the configuration of these 
‘‘ sandy ” and fiat “ shores,” -f- is there deceptive enough, as I 
have myself observed. 
In setting foot on unexplored tracts of the regions of thought, 
our author proves himself a singularly rash leader. He is con- 
tinually exposing himself to be defeated by the unknown power 
which he has omitted to take into his calculations; and he has 
moreover failed to secure any line of retreat amid the univer- 
sally recognized truths of philosophy. He has not made himself 
master of Gaul before he invades Britain. 
The real question, and that to which I now address myself, is 
whether there is any foundation in the solid acquisitions of 
modern Science for the speculations of this address? 
Science, as it seems to me, is made to bear the blame of an 
attack upon religion, for which she has not lent her territories as 
a base of operations. The assault comes from another quarter 
altogether, — the dream-land of ancient or of modern Conjecture. 
PART II. 
The Address. — a. The Philosophical Argument. 
I shall now attempt an analysis of the Belfast Address, in 
the very first page of which I seem to find a confirmation 
of the views above expressed. 
On the authority of Hume (in his Natural History of Reli- 
gion ), and not from any discovery of the writer, we are told 
that mankind pursued a certain course “ in forming their notions 
of the origin of things.” We are instructed that their concep- 
tion of “ supersensual beings” was “ a process of abstraction,” 
resulting from the scientific tendencies or “ impulse” “ inherent 
in primeval man.” 
* Portus Rutupinus, Richborough, in Kent. — See Smith’s Diet, of Greek 
and Roman Geography for description, also the Atlas of Ancient Geog., 1874. 
by same author. 
f “ Rhydtufeth.” — See Camden’s Britannia. 
