THE OBJECTORS TO SCIENTIFIC INQUIRY. desert; while others are as suddenly stripped of plentiful fortunes, and left on the parish by their own avarice and credulity, what can be hoped for on the one hand, but abandoned luxury and wantonness, on the other but extreme madness and despair? In short, all projects for growing rich by sudden and extraordinary methods, as they operate violently on the passions of men, and encourage them to despise the slow moderate gains that are to be made by an honest industry, must be ruinous to the public, and even the winners themselves will at length be involved in the public ruin. 19 our reach. They say that all these phenomena originated miraculously, or in some way totally different from the ordinary course of nature, and that therefore they conceive it to be futile, not to say presumptuous, to attempt to inquire into them. To such sincere and earnest persons I would only say, that a question of this kind is not to be shelved upon theoretic or speculative grounds. You may remember the story of the Sophist who demonstrated to Diogenes in the most complete and satisfactory manner, that he could not walk; that, in fact, all motion was an impossibility; and that Diogenes refuted him by simply God grant the time be not near when getting up and walking round his tub. So, men shall say: "This island was once in- in the same way, the man of science replies habited by a religious, brave, sincere people, to objections of this kind, by simply getting of plain uncorrupt manners, respecting in- up and walking onward, and shewing what bred worth rather than titles and appear science has done and is doing-by pointing ances, assertors of liberty, lovers of their to the immense mass of facts which have country, jealous of their own rights, and un- been ascertained and systematised under willing to infringe the rights of others; the forms of the great doctrines of Morphoimprovers of learning and useful arts, ene-logy, of Development, of Distribution, and mies to luxury, tender of other men's lives, and prodigal of their own; inferior in nothing to the old Greeks or Romans, and superior to each of those people in the perfections of the other. Such were our ancestors during their rise and greatness; but they degenerated, grew servile flatterers of men in power, adopted Epicurean notions, became venal, corrupt, injurious, which drew upon them the hatred of God and man, and occasioned their final ruin. BISHOP BERKELEY. THE OBJECTORS TO SCIENTIFIC [PROFESSOR HUXLEY is a native of Ealing in Middlesex, born in 1825. He studied medicine in the Medical School of Charing-Cross Hospital; and in 1846 en tered the medical service of the royal navy. He is now Professor of Anatomy in the Royal College of Surgeons, and Fullerian Professor of Physiology in the Royal Institution. He is a Vice-president of the Zoologi cal and the Geological Societies, &c.] There are in the world a number of extremely worthy, well-meaning persons, whose judgments and opinions are entitled to the utmost respect on account of their sincerity, who are of opinion that vital phenomena, and especially all questions relating to the origin of vital phenomena, are questions quite apart from the ordinary run of inquiry, and are, by their very nature, placed out of the like. He sees an enormous mass of facts and laws relating to organic beings, which stand on the same good sound founda tion as every other natural law. With this mass of facts and laws before us, therefore, seeing that, as far as organic matters have hitherto been accessible and studied, they have shown themselves capable of yielding to scientific investigation, we may accept this as a proof that order and law reign there as well as the rest of nature. The man of science says nothing to objectors of this sort but supposes that we can and shall walk to a knowledge of organic nature, in the same way that we have walked to a knowledge of the laws and principles of the inorganic world. from ignorance and ill-will. To such I But there are objectors who say the same from them, and that the real presumptionwould reply that the objection comes ill may almost say, the real blasphemy-in this matter, is in the attempt to limit that inquiry into the causes of phenomena, which is the source of all human blessings, and from which has sprung all human prosperity and progress; for, after all, we can accomplish comparatively little. The limit range of our own faculties bounds us on every side -the field of our powers of observation is small enough, and he who endeavours to narrow the sphere of our inquiries is only pursuing a course that is likely to produce the greatest harm to his fellow-men. . . FREEDOM OF INQUIRY. [JOHN TYNDALL, a native of Ireland, was born about the year 1820, and is Professor of Natural Philosophy in the Royal Institute in London. He has pub lished: “Mountaineering, 1861” “A Vacation Tour, 1862;" "Heat considered as a Mode of Motion, 1863;" "One Ra diation, 1865;" "Sound, a Course of Eight Lectures, 1867;" "Faraday, as a Discoverer, 1868; "Natural Philosophy in Easy Lessons, 1869;" "Essays on the Imagination in Science, 1870;" "Fragments in Science for Unscientific People, 1871; " "Hours of Exercise in the Alps, 1871," &c. Professor Tyndall is an enthusiastic climber and admirer of Alpine scenery, "a remarkable example," it has been said, "of combined cerebral and muscular activity." He has done much to popularise science as a lecturer at the Royal Institution, besides being distinguished for original research, Like Mr. Huxley, he has stood forward as an advocate for free and unrestricted research into all the recesses of mind and matter; but has indignantly repudiated the creed of atheism which has been lightly attributed to him.] tions of materialism, I would affirm this to be a field for the noblest exercise of what, in contrast with the knowing faculties, may be called the creative faculties of man. Here, however, I touch a theme too great for me to handle, but which will assuredly be handled by the loftiest minds when you and I, like streaks of morning cloud, shall have been melted into the infinite azure of the past. MARY'S DREAM. [JOHN LOWE (1750-1798), a student of divinity, son of the gardener at Kenmore in Galloway, was author of the fine pathetic lyric, “ Mary's Dream," which he wrote on the death of a gentleman named Miller, a surgeon at sea, who was attached to a Miss M'Ghie, Airds. The poet was tutor in the family of the lady's father, and was betrothed to her sister. He emigrated to America, however, where he made an unhappy marriage, became dissipated, and died in great misery near Fredericks The moon had climbed the highest hill Her silver light on tower and tree; Her thoughts on Sandy far at sea, She from her pillow gently raised Her head, to ask who there might be, It lies beneath a stormy sea. So, Mary, weep no more for me! It is not to the point to say that the views burgh, Va.] of Lucretius and Bruno, of Darwin and Spencer, may be wrong. Here I should agree with you, deeming it indeed certain that these views will undergo modification. But the point is, that whether right or wrong, we claim the right to discuss them. For science, however, no exclusive claim is here made; you are not urged to erect it into an idol. The inexorable advance of man's understanding in the path of knowledge, and those unquenchable claims of his moral and emotional nature which the understanding can never satisfy, are here equally set forth. The world embraces not only a Newton, but a Shakespeare-not only a Boyle, but a Raphael—not only a Kant, but a Beethoven-not only a Darwin, but a Carlyle. Not in each of these, but in all, is human nature whole. They are not opposed, but supplementary · not only mutually exclusive, but reconcilable. And if, unsatisfied with them all, the human mind, with the yearning of a pilgrim for his distant home, will still turn to the mystery from which it has emerged, seeking to fashion it as to give unity to thought and faith; so long as this is done, not only without intol erance or bigotry of any kind, but with the enlightened recognition that ultimate fixity of conception is here unattainable, and that each succeeding age must be held free to fashion the mystery in accordance with its own needs then, casting aside all the restric "Three stormy nights and stormy days We tossed upon the raging main; We soon shall meet upon that shore, And thou and I shall part no more!" |