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Kev. Mr. Gorman. — I rise with some hesitation and diffidence, in the 
absence of the writer of this paper, to say a few words on the principal ques- 
tion, which has been put before us with so much skill and fairness. The last 
speaker, it seems to me, has not quite clearly caught the precise point of 
Professor Porter’s reasoning. The argument is plainly a reductio ad 
absurdum, exactly similar in its purport to what I must regard as the very 
conclusive answer of Dr. Johnson, to which reference has been made. No 
one is bound even to try to understand flimsy and unintelligible hypotheses 
such as that of Bishop Berkeley, or any other form of visionary idealism 
which manifestly contradicts the plainest dictates of common sense. To 
this principle of common sense, against all forms of unreasonable specu- 
lation, every one has the right of appeal as the last resort. The principle 
which Professor Porter evidently had in his mind was the seemingly 
simple, but really most profound saying of Bishop Butler — “ abstrac- 
tions can do nothing.” And this is, in fact, the principle which lies at 
the root of the whole discussion. To any mind that has firmly grasped 
it, the exposure of Professor Tyndall’s fallacies becomes a very easy matter. 
His speculations, for the most part, as soon as he leaves his own peculiar 
line of study, are nothing but abstractions — the most empty of abstractions, 
woven together dexterously, under the influence of a fervid imagination. 
They have nothing to do either with a rational psychology or with philo- 
sophy in general, much less with the sacred mysteries which lie within the 
sphere and dominion of theology, the queen and mistress of all the sciences. 
It cannot be too often repeated in commenting on the eloquent and highly 
imaginative lucubrations of that class of physicists of which Professor Tyndall 
is a type, that from the point of view of mere physical science, it is, to say 
the least, unbecoming, if it be not an impertinence in them, to speak 
magisterially upon questions which lie entirely outside the field of their 
special studies. If it seem good to them to ascend to the higher level of 
intellectual and spiritual thought, they are bound to assume the truth of 
those rational first principles and axioms which all wise men, in ancient and 
modern times, have agreed to accept as starting points in the study of the 
deepest problems of nature and life. As soon as they do this there will be 
some hope of our coming to an understanding with them. Our controversies 
will then have a chance of ceasing to be what, for the most part, they have 
grows by ‘ cellular accession from living food.’ By the way, I am not quite 
sure whether it is Prof. Tyndall or Dr. Porter who says this ; but whoever it 
is I cannot understand it. Unless a man live solely on oysters or cheese, I 
cannot understand how this is to be explained.” To this Dr. Porter 
replies : — “ To relieve my critic from the imagined necessity of being driven 
to the necessity of living solely ‘ on oysters and cheese,’ by the logic of his 
interpretation of the phrase ‘cellular accession from living food,’ I 
would say that by living food I meant food, or pabulum, which by the action 
of a living agent has been prepared to be assimilated in ‘ cellular accession,’ 
and in that sense made living .” 
