CARDINAL CULLEN ON PROFESSOR TYNDALL.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4322, 27 January 1875, Page 3

CARDINAL CULLEN ON PROFESSOR TYNDALL.

(From The Times, Oct. 31.) It was in many cases an unfortunate moment when Professor Tyndall " prolonging the vision backward across the boundary of experimental evidence," announced that ho "discerned in matter the promise and potency of every form and quality of life." Whatever his precise meaning may havo been, the effect of his declaration lias been to produce akiud of " scare" among simple people, and to afford an opportunity to certain others, who are by no means simple, of which they have not failed to tako advantage. Hero, for instance, in another column, is an address which the astute archbishops and bishops of tho Roman Catholic Church in Iroland, headed by Cardinal Cullen, have just issued to their flocks. Whatever may be its religious or philosophical value, its practical purpose is very clearly revealed by its closing recommendation. Roman

Catholic" prelates are not men to meet in solemn conclave ' and manifesto upon sdme point of' theology without a, ■ distinct practical' aim. They have discerned the' opportunity of exhibiting to their followers in a concrete and visible form the spectre against which they have long been fighting a■' battle under the disguises of Queen's Colleges and Secular Education. Behold, they exclaim, the real tendency and ultimate result of these insidious inventions of Liberalism ! Here is the doctrine of a school of heathen philosophers who flourished 600 years before Christ, " born of a corrupt paganism, spurned by the great heart of mankiud in disgust, angrily rejected as absurd by the very flower of human intelligence," reprehended by Divine authority as an unpardonable sin—in a word, flagrant materialism, atheism, animalism, propounded as "the mild light of Science," by a " polemical apd propagandist spirit," and threatening the youth pf Ireland with a dreadful choice between a leap over a precipice and the deathlike stillness of the swamp. The horror of the apparition is described with all the vigorous magniloquence which characterises Irish pastorals, and it is easy to understand the consciousness of successful declamation with which the finalquestion is asked. Who, exclaim the bishops, will not save the Irish youth from this terrible alternative " by maintaining for them in a.Catholic university and in Catholic schools a living fountain of Christian education ?" This is the practical conclusion to which, as we have said, the whole address points. The faithful are exhorted to turn a deaf ear to any suggestion which would induce them to seek instruction or examination in those English or Protestant .universities in which these materialistic theories have found their home, and to maintain institutions in which the Roman Catholic Church will take care that science ' is kept in strict leading-strings and prevented from breaking bounds.

A tribute of admiration is due to the promptitude which has so vigorously turned a rare opportunity to account. A , confession of Materialism, however modified, in the President of the British Association, and delivered at Belfast, was, no doubt, a singular piece of good fortune to ■ the ■ opponents of a " Godless Education," but the vigilance which takes instant advantage of it is none the less to be applauded. It must be owned, too, that the prelates have displayed a just instinct as to the real question at issue. It wa3 equally admitted by Professor Tyndall, though not in so palpable a form as that of the encouragement of a special institution. It is not the question of the truth or falsehood of certain speculations, whether scientific or theological. Most people, probably, are equally in the dark whether respecting the precise nature of Professor Tyndall's views or the revelation which the Koman Catholic Church opposes to it. On each side the picture becomes a dissolving view as we gaze on it with any attention. Professor Tyndall's "Materialism" is, as ho has taken ample pains to tell us, very " different from what we suppose." All candid readers have dismissed, even before his recent disclaimers, as in any way intended by. his language, the violent negations he was accused of. sanctioning. His imagination is as active on the other side of his material horizon as on this side of it, and he peoples his dim world with unknown forms in which the explanation of our moral and spiritual consciousness is to be found. -.,.'.;.

The prelates, in describing, the nature of their own dogmas, describe equally those of their opponents. According to this address there is nothing to which they cannot accommodate themselves. It is quite impossible, they tell us, tbat science and faith should ever be in real collision. Should they appear to be, it is a mere misunderstanding on one side or on both. Perhaps the scientific dogma has been imperfectly stated, or, on the other hand, the theological dogma may be no dogma at all, but only an opinion ; "or,-even if it bo a dogma, it,has been misunderstood, or not explained according-to the mind of the Church." If this be the case, even the distinct visions which Roman Catholicism is supposed to offer to its votaries are liable to, dissolve at the light of day, and science, after all, achieves her triumph. One cannot, however, but ask what iB the use of dogmas which are thus to be always held subject to the possibility of their proving no dogmas at all, but only misunderstood opinions. The Church, according to the prelates, is in possession of absolute truth ; but she does not, .after all, know what the tntth is until the light of .'science has dispersed her own misconceptions. On either side we are in the hands of men who.dream dreams and see visions, and tell lis, as they only can, that we must wait for the dawn before we see our way clearly. . ; The practical world must, in short, decline the controversy raised at, Belfast so far.as it lies between two conflicting. theories of the universe. If"" it is simply unscientific to speak of theories of the universe as part of the domain of physical science so-called,'' it is not the less untheological to speak of such theories as part of the domain of theological science socalled. The only practical question at issue isj'as Professor Tyndallsaid, whether the guidance of thought and education shall be, left' to the freedom of the scientific spirit, or handed over again to the domination from which it escaped three or four centuries ago."".These are the two courses propounded for our. consideration by the rival authorities of the British Association and the Roman Catholic Church, and it is of the first importance they should_ be disentangled- from all such adventitious prejudices as those with which, by Profesßor Tyndall's help, the Roman Catholic bishops seek to confuse' them. The Cardinal invites the youth and manhood of Ireland to place their scientific efforts and aspirations under the secure control of the Church's infallibility. Professor Tyndall, on the other hand, declares that " what we should oppose, to the death if necessary, is any attempt to found upon the religious bias of man's nature a system which should exercise despotic swsy over the intellect.'.' The public need not trouble themselves about ancient schools of philosophy in order to answer that question. They need only inquire under whose'guidance Science reached the point at which she now commands the attention of the Roman Catholic Church and compels the Pope to bless colleges founded to teach the doctrines of Galileo.