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had not died before Democritus was born. He represents Aristotle as 
preaching induction without practising it, whereas he did practise induction 
in his Natural History, but certainly did not preach it as Bacon afterwards 
did. He ascribes, it could be shown, a doctrine to Protagoras the Sophist 
which no scholar would attribute to him. A writer (Thomas Davidson) in 
the October (1874) number of the Journal of Speculative Philosophy, proves 
that he has not given a thoroughly correct account even of the philosophy 
of his favourite Democritus, whom he represents as making all the varieties 
of things depend on the varieties of atoms in number, size, and aggregation, 
whereas Aristotle, the only original authority on this subject, says that he 
made them depend on the figure, aggregation, and position. In the same 
article it is shown that Dr. Tyndall mistakes throughout, in the few 
allusions he makes to Aristotle.” 
The Chairman. — With reference to what fell from Dr. Coleman, I 
understood him to express a wish that there should be something more 
positive in this paper — that we should have something about the reason of 
scepticism, and how best to meet it. I think that if we went into these 
questions we should be exceeding our limits as a scientific society. I do not 
charge sceptics with conscious dishonesty ; no man has a right to make that 
charge against any other ; but in the case of some sceptics with whom I am 
intimately acquainted, who profess to be honestly seeking the truth, it is 
easy to be seen that there is in their minds a bias which makes them cling 
to every difficulty. They believe they are seeking the truth, but they are 
not seeking it with unbiassed minds, and I cannot but think that scepticism 
is mainly founded on a distaste to revelation, often working unconsciously in 
the minds of those who say they would be glad to believe. To enter into 
such considerations is foreign to our object ; all we can do is to deal with 
two branches of the subject. We may show, as far as we can, that science 
tends in some degree to confirm revelation, and that there is nothing in 
scientific discovery which properly tends to produce a sceptical frame of 
min d. I think that Professor Tyndall himself really adduces strong argu- 
ments in favour of religion when he admits that physical science is not 
sufficient to satisfy the wants of the human mind, and when he endorses the 
opinion of Herbert Spencer, that evolution involves an inscrutable mystery 
which man cannot fathom. He might have gone further and have said that 
the simplest facts around us involve a mystery which we cannot fathom. 
Take one of the most familiar, that of a stone falling to tho ground ; we say 
that it falls because the earth attracts it, but this is only a statement of the 
fact that thero is some cause which induces one particlo of matter to move 
towards another. We are surrounded by mystery. That one mass of matter 
should thus act upon another at a distance has been pronounced by one of 
the greatest of modern philosophers to be inexplicable, and the only ground 
on which tho mind can take refuge is that there is a God who is tho main- 
spring of creation. Tho other branch, which naturally is chiefly dealt with 
here, is the answering particular objections which scientific men bring 
