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glimpses of a brilliant speculative theory. The author gathers 
the scraps of his readings and the shreds of his reflections in 
literature and theology, and sets them forth with no force 
except such as startling paradoxes always obtain when they 
fall from lips as eloquent as those of this attractive speaker. 
All recognition of the methods of physical science seems to 
have departed from his memory. The four divisions of the 
argument are held together by the foregone conclusion of the 
author that the devotee of science may recognize nothing in 
the universe but matter and fate and evolution, and requires 
for the explanation of the existence and history of this universe 
neither intelligence nor goodness. 
In the first of these divisions Prof. Tyndall writes as a 
Physicist. As a Physicist, he never fails to be clear, con- 
sistent, and eloquent, even when he is not convincing. In the 
second, he is a Physiologist. Here he is limited in his recog- 
nition of vital phenomena, and committed to the foregone 
conclusion that life can be explained by mechanism. In the 
third, he is a Psychologist. In this role, he is a sturdy mate- 
rialist in his reasonings and a poetical absti’actionist in his 
concessions. In the fourth division he is a Moralist, Metaphy- 
sician, and Theologian. As a Moralist he accepts the hard 
theory of Hobbes as made flexible by Darwin and Spencer. 
As a Metaphysician he is a fatalistic Evolutionist with a dash 
of imaginative optimism. As a Theologian he is a sentimental 
Atheist or an imaginative Agnostic. In each of these several 
capacities he dexterously shifts from one phase to the other 
of his sensitive many-sidedness of opinion and phraseology, ac- 
cording to the varying needs and aspects of his argument and 
his audience. 
We have read many things from Prof. Tyndall, with sincere 
admiration for the sagacity of his insight, the skill of his 
expositions, and the splendour of his generalizations. We must 
confess that in the perusal of this address our admiration has 
passed into wonder and our wonder into astonishment. If this 
is science, then science has ceased to be scientific. No man 
has insisted more energetically than Prof. Tyndall upon the 
necessity of mathematical formulization to fix whatever laws 
are surmised, and of rigid experiment to test and confirm the 
most plausible of generalizations. In this address, he seems 
to us to have forgotten to exemplify the first article of his 
own philosophic creed and to have wholly failed to apply the 
tests of experimental verification. 
As we have read the occasional addresses of Prof. Tyndall 
with unabated interest, and noticed that they have usually 
represented the results of the meditations of his summer 
