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observations of others to interpret the constants of your equations. And, 
finally, the real place of the moon or planet occupying the place predicted by 
your mathematical analysis is your only ultimate proof that you have not 
been misled by the subtile methods of thought, experiment, and observation, 
of which you have made use. In such a course as this I think we may see a 
useful analogy as to the humility, long training, and serious study required 
by a sound pursuit of theology. I feel assured that men who will apply to 
theology the same training imperatively required for a sound knowledge of 
natural science will never be found among the impugners of revelation. 
Here I am reminded by an observation of Mr. Reddie how much more im- 
portant is a sound philosophical education to the mere cramming and accu- 
mulation of scientific facts — and oftentimes of those doubtful hypotheses so 
frequently dignified by the name of science. I regret the formation of a natural 
science tripos at Cambridge. I think the old training was much better, which 
taught men rather how to pursue science than to acquire after all what must 
be little more than a mere smattering of science, or of scientific theory. 
Dr. Gladstone has told us that such terms as Catalysis or Epipolism seem only 
to have been woven as a cover for our ignorance. It may be a humiliating 
confession after all our boast of the advance of natural science — of our science 
of physical astronomy, which we have supposed advanced to the rank of an 
exact science, perhaps the only one fairly dignified by that epithet,— it may 
be a humiliating confession, but I believe the term gravitation to be as much 
a cover to cloak our ignorance as Catalysis or Epipolism. Gravitation is a 
name for certain phenomena observed among material bodies. Catalysis is a 
name for certain phenomena when one kind of matter is in contact with 
another whose ultimate cause is unknown. Epipolism is a term for certain 
phenomena of light manifested in its passage through certain fluids. But 
what do we know about the ultimate cause of the phenomena classed under 
the term gravitation ? Is gravitation a property inherent in matter, or is it 
the result of certain forces independent of and external to matter ? We can 
give no answer to such queries ; even Newton was too modest to hazard any 
more than a guess inclining to the latter. When I consider how little we 
really do know of natural science, with all our boasted progress, I feel how 
little we should boast of our reasoning powers, and I cannot but thank God, 
who, by the influence of His Holy Spirit on the human heart, affords even the 
peasant a stronger ground for his faith in the truths of Divine revelation 
than any the philosopher can adduce for the most advanced of all natural 
sciences. Dr. Gladstone said, “ We see a piece of rubbed amber giving rise 
to certain phenomena of attraction and repulsion, and we spring to the sup- 
position of an ‘ electric fluid ’ ; we count seven colours in the solar spectrum, 
and we at once associate it with the gamut of music.” Dr. Gladstone, in this 
passage, as well as in what he said about heat, seems to follow Mr. Grove in the 
idea that imponderable fluids have been banished from nature. I shall not 
repeat what I have so recently said to you on this subject, further than to 
remark that some of the most eminent of modern philosophers have recently 
started a hypothesis which replaces the imponderable fluids or tethers of 
