PROFESSOR TYNDALL'S ADDRESS.

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 1926, 6 March 1875, Page 2

PROFESSOR TYNDALL'S ADDRESS.

[At the request of numerous subscribers we have decided upon publishing Professor Tyndall's Address to - the British Association at Belfast. The first portion appears below, and the publication will be continued at intervals as convenience may permit.] . . Preface. = At the request of my Publishers, string, thened by the expressed desire of many Correspondents, I reprint, with a few slight alterations, this Address. ; It was written under some disadvantages this year in the Alps, and sent by instalments to the printer. When read' subsequently it proved too loDg for its purpose, and several of its passages were accordingly struck out. Some of them are here restored. - It has provoked an unexpected amount of criticism. This, in due time, will subside ; and I confidently look forward to a calmer future for a verdict, founded not on imaginary sins, but 6h the real facts of the case. Of the numberless strictures and accusations, some of them exceeding fierce, of which I have been, and continue.ft© be, the object I refrain from speaking at any length. To one or two of them, however, out of respect fortheir sources, I.would aslc permission briefly to refer. -

An evening paper of the first rank, after the ascription of various more or less questionable aims and motives, proceeds to the imputation, that I permitted the cheers of my audience to 'stimulate' ma ■■■;• to the utterance of words which no rightminded,, man, without a sense of the graverijf responsibility, could employ. I trust tffe author of this charge will allow me in all courtesy to assure him that the words ascribed by him to the spur of the moment were wr.tten in Switzerland; that they stood in the printed copy of the Address from which I read; that they evoked no «cheers,' but a silence far more impressive than cheers ; and that, finally, as regards both approbation and the rererse, my course had be« n thought over and decided long before I ventured to address a Belfast audience. m i A writer in a most able theological journal represents me as ' patting religion on the back.' The thought of doing so it certainly his, not mint. The facts of religious feeling are to me as certain as the facts of physics. But the world I hold, will have to distinguish between the feeling and its forms, and to vary the latter in accordance with the intellectual condition of the ageI am unwilling to dwell upon statements ascribed to eminent men, whicn may be imperfectly, reported in the newspapers; and I therefore pass over a recent sermon attributed to the Bishop of Manchester with the remark, that ,ojae engaged so much as he is in busy and, I doubt »ofcon the whole, beneficent outward life, is not likely to be among the earliest to discern th© more inward and spiritual signs of the times, or to prepare for the condition which they foreshadow. In a recent speech at Dewsbury, the Dean of Manchester is reported to have fxpressed himself thus:—" The Professor (myself) ended a most remarkable and •loquent speech, by terming himself a material Atheist.' My attention was drawn to Dean Cowie's statement by a , correspondent, ■ who described it as Standing ' conspicuous among the strange calumnies' with which my words have been assailed. For myself 1 use; no lanfuage which could imply that I am hurt by suck attacks. They have lost their power to wound or injure. So likewise as regards a resolution recently passed by the' Presbytery of Belfast, in which Professor Huxley and myself are spoken of as * ignoring the existence of Grod, and advocating pure and simple materialism;' had the possessive pronoun 'our' preceded 'God/ and had the words 'what we consider' preceded 'pure,' this statement would have been objectively true; but to ncake it so this qualification is required. Cardinal Cullen, I am told, is also actively engaged in erecting spiritual barriers against the intrusion of ' Infidelity' into Ireland. His Eminence, I believe, has reason to suspect that the Catholic youth around him are not proof to the •editions of science. Strong as he is >4( I believe him to be impotent here. The youth of Ireland will imbibe ycience, howaver slowly; they will be leavened by it, however gradually. And to its inward modifying power among Catholics themselves, rather than to any Protestant propagandism, or other external influence, I took for the abatement of various incongruities ; among them, of those mediaeval proceedings which, to the scandal and amazement of our nineteenth century intelligence, have been revived among us during the last two years. v In connexion with the charge of Atheism, I wonld make one remark. Christian men are proved by their writings to have their nours of weakness and of doubt,' as well as their hours of strength and of conviction; and men like myself share, in their own way, these variations of mood and tense. Were the religious Views of many of my assailants the only alternative ones, I do not know how strong the claims of the doctrine of ' Material Atheism' upen my allegiance might be. Probably they would be very strong. But, as it is; I have noticed during years of self-observation that it is not in hours Of clearness and vigour that this doctrine commends itself to my mind; that in the presence of stronger and healthier thought it ever dissolves and disappears, as offering no solution of the mystery in which we dwell, and of which we form a part. To coarser attacks and denunciations I ■ pay no attention; nor have I any real t reason to complain of revilings addressed to me, which professing Christians, as could readily be proved, do not scruple to use towards each other. The more agreeable task remains to me of thanking those who have tried, however hopelessly, j to keep accusation within the bounds of; justice, and who, privately, and at some risk in public, have honoured me with the expression of their sympathy and approval. John Tyndall. Atheksjum Club. September 15,1874.