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riouSj and serene ; and to some of its professors it has seemed 
to be consistent, not only with a high morality^ but even^ 
strange to say_, with strong religious feeling. A lively sense 
of the inadequacy of Materialism as a theory of the universe, 
and of its present mischievous tendencies, need not interfere 
with our appreciation of it as a necessary and often useful 
element in the historical development of philosophical opinion, 
and of science and the practical arts. 
The great achievements of our time in the field of physical 
research, and more especially the brilliant induction connected 
with the name of Darwin, have, without doubt, largely con- 
tributed to the revival in the latter half of this century of 
materialistic habits of thought. What is called scientific 
explanation has penetrated to groups of phenomena hitherto 
enveloped in a mysterious darkness, more particularly in the 
department now called Biology,’^ which concerns itself with 
the development, structure, and functions of living organisms. 
Darwin^s data are few, seemingly simple, and, for the most 
part, well established on the solid basis of experience ; so that 
one is apt to forget that he postulates any force of which the 
origin is unknown. We learn how the eye has been developed 
from mere spots of pigment, and the honey-bee educated by 
circumstance to attain the perfect symmetry of her hexagonal 
cells j how monkeys have obtained prehensile tails and giraffes 
have been provided, in the same organ, with special fly- 
flappers j why the orchid Coryanthes entraps the humble-bee, 
visiting its gigantic flowers, to a plunge-bath in its great 
water-bucket ; why the argus pheasant and peacock spread 
such glorious fans whilst their hens are soberly attired ; why 
the glow-worm carries a light in her tail ; how the torpedo 
came by his galvanic battery ; with an endless list of like 
whys and hows : we read and are delighted, — almost 
spell-bound ; not only by the variety of nature, but by the 
force and ingenuity of the human mind ; and are prone to 
believe that the plummet of science has really touched bottom ! 
and that the origin of all things in mere physical adjustments 
is at last on the point of demonstration ! 
Persons unused to philosophical inquiry may not be aware 
that the question of original causation is not even approached 
by the physical researches to which I have alluded. To many 
such it seems simple to say, — We take our stand upon expe- 
rience ; we believe what we know ; we know what we can see, 
hear, touch, taste, smell. To us the world seems to go of 
itself. If any one will explain the origin of things without 
going beyond the limits of what we perceive through the 
senses, to him we will listen as proposing a possible and a 
