PROFESSOR TYNDALL'S ADDRESS.

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 1990, 21 May 1875, Page 2

PROFESSOR TYNDALL'S ADDRESS.

Address delivered before the British Association, assembled at Belfast, with additions, by John Tyndall, F.JR.S., '" President. London : IoNGMiNS, Gbeen, iW, Co., 1874 -. - >,- .-.,,> - [CONCITTSION.]

The strength of the doctrine of evolution consists, not in an experimental demonstration (for the subject is hardly accessible to this mode of proof), but in its general harmony with scientific thought. From contrast, moreover, it derives enormous relative' strength. On the one side we.have a theory (if it could with any propriety be so called) derived, as were the theories referred to at the beginning of this Address, not from;, 4 the study of Nature, bat from the observation of men—a theory^ which . converts the Power whose garment is seen in >the visible universe into an Artificer, fashioned after the human model, and. acting -by broken efforts, as man i 3 seen to act in the visible universe into an Artificer* fashioned after.the human model, and acting by broken efforts, as man is seen to act. On the other side, we have the con* ception that all we see around, and all we feel within us—the phenomena of physical nature as well as those of 7 the human mind—have their unsearchable .roots in a cosmical life, if I dare apply the term, an infinitesimal span of which is offered .to the investigation of man. And even this span is only knowable in part. W« can trace the development of a nervous system* and correlate with it the parallel phenomena of- sensation and. thought. w"e see with undoubting certainty that they go hand in hand. 'But we try to soar in a vacuum the moment, we. seek •, to comprehend the connexion between them. An Archimedean fulcrum is here required which the human mind cannot ! command; and. the effort to solve the problem, to bcrrow a comparison from an illustrious friend of mine, is like the effort of a man trying to lift himself by his own waistband. All that has been here said -is to be taken in connexion with * this fundamental truth.. When 'nascent senses' are spoken of,,when ithe differentiation of a tissue at first vaguely sensitive all over' is spoken of, and when these processes are associated with 'the modification of an organism by its environment,' the same parallelism, without contact; or even approach to contact, - is implied. ? Man the abject is separated by an impassable gulf from man the subject. There is no motor energy in intellect to carry it without logical rupture from the one to the other. -

Further, the doctrine of evolution derives man in his totality from .the inter-action of organism and enrironrnent through countless ages past.- The Human Understanding, for example—* that facmlty which Mr Spencer has turned so skilfully round upon its own antecedents—is itself a result of the play between organism and environment through cosmic ranges of time. Never surely did prescription plead so irresistible a claim. But then it comes to pass that, over and above his understanding, there are many other, things appertaining to man whose perspective rights are quite as strong as those of the understanding itself. It is a result, for example, of the play of organism and environment that sugar is sweet and that aloes are fitter, that the smell of henbane differs from the perfume of a rose. Such facts of consciousness (for which, by the way, no adequate reason has yes been rendered) are quite as old as the understanding; and many other- things can- boast; an, equally ancient origin. Mr: Spencer at one place refers to that most powerful of passions—the amatory.passion*—as. one which, when it first occurs, is antecedent to all relative experience whatever j and we may pass its claim as being at least as ancient and valid "astbat of the understanding. Then there are such things woven into the texture of man as the feeling of Awe, Reverence, Won^er-^nd not alone the sexual love just referred to, but the love of the beautiful; physical, and moral, in Nature, Poetry, and 'Art. There is also that deep-set feeling which, since the earliest dawn of history, and probably for ages prior to all history, incorporated itself in the Religions of the world. You who have escaped from these

religions into the high-and-dry light of the intellect may deride thorn; but in so doing you deride accidents of form merely, and fail to touch the immovable basis of the religious, sentiment in the nature 1 of man. : To yield this sentiment reasonable satisfaction is the problem of problems at the present hour. And grotesque in relation to scientific culture as many of the religions of the world have been and are—dangerous,, nay destructive,; to the ' dearest privileges of freemen as some of them undoubtedly have been, and would, if they could.be again—it will be wise :to recognize them as the forms of a force, mischievous, if permitted to intrude on the region of knowledge, over which lit holds no. command,'bufc capable of being . guided to noblo issues in the region of emotion, which is its proper and elevated sphere. * - : All religious theories, schemes and systems, which embrace notions of or which otherwise reach into jthe" ddmain of science, must, in so far as thev/~ do this, submit to the conlrol of stpatice, and relinquish all thought of controlling it. ' Acting otherwise proved disastrous in the past, and it is simply fatuous to-day. Every system which wpuld escape the fate of an organism" too rigid to. "adjust itself to its environment must be plastic to the extent that the growth of knowledge demands. When this truth has been thoroughly taken in, rigidity will be relaxed, exclusiveness,diminished, things now> deemed? essential will be dropped, and* elements now rejected will be assimilated. The lifting of the life is the essential point; and as long as dogmatism, fanaticism, and intolerance are kept out, various modes of leverage may be employed to .raise life to a higher level. Science- itself not infrequently derives motive power from an ultra-scientific source. Whewell speaks of enthusiasm of temper as a hindrance to science ; but he means the enthusiasm of weak heads. There is a strong and resolute enthusiasm in which science finds an ally ; and it is to the lowering of this fire, rather than to the diminution of intellectual insight, that the lessening productiveness of men of science in their mature years is to be ascribed. Mr Buckle sought to detach intellectual achievement from moral force. He gravely erred: for -without moral force to whip it into action, the achievements of the intellect would be poor indeed. It has been said that science divorces itself from literature; but the statement, like so many, others; arises from lack of knowledge. A' glance at the less technical writings of its leaders—of its Helmholtz, ' its' Huxley, anditsPu Bois-Keymbnd— would show what breadth of literary culture they command. Where among Modern '■' writers acan you find their superiors in clearness and vigour of literary^ style P.. Science desires not isolation, but freely combines with every effort towards the bettering of man's estate. Single-handed, and supported not by-outward, sympathy, but by inward, force, it has built at least one great wing of the many-mansioned home which iman in his totality demands. And if rough walls and protruding rafter-ends indicate that on one side the edifice is still incom- "? plete^itfis only by wise combination of the parts required with those, already 'irrevocably built that we can. hope for completeness. There, is no necepsary incongruity - between what has 'been . accomplisheA and whaj; .riemains:tojbeLdQ^,e. :^The moral "glow of Socrates, which we'all feel by ignition,, has in it nothing .incompatible- with the physics ;of , Anaxagoras which he so much scorned, ■ butwhich he Would harflly scorn.to-day. . And <here ..I am reminded* of one "amongst us;ti6ary, but still strong, whose .prophet-ypice some thirty years ago,. far more t6an any" other of this ag^j unlocked whatever of life and nobleness-lay latent in its most gifted minds—one fit to stand beside Socrates, or the Maccabean Eleazar, and to dare and suffer all that they suffered and dared—fit, as he -onco said of Fichte, 'to have been the teacher of the Stoa, and to ha,ve discoursed, of Beauty and Virtue in the groves of Academe.'; : With a capacity: to ..grasp ' physical' principles y "which his friend Gpethe did not and which: even 'total lack of exercise has not been able to reduce to. atrophy, it is the world's Joss " that he, in the vigour of his years, did not , v; open his mind and sympathies to science, land make its conclusions a portion of his

message to .mankind Marvellously endowed as he was—equally equipped on the ; - side., of, the .Heart, and of .the

. Understanding—lie might hare done much towards Reaching us how to reconcile ,the claims of both, and to enable them in ,: iqoming iimesj to dwell together in unity of spirit and in the bond of peace. '■:. And now^the end is come/ With more time, or greater strength and knowledge, whaihaSrbeen here ;said might hate been better said, while worthy matters here ■'■■; omitted -might' have (received ■ fit expression, " But ther^ wpuld^are been no • material deviation frbtti^it|iefeTiews set forth. As regards myself, they are,not: the growth of a day; and as regards you, ,- I thought you ought to know the en•*fironment whiphi with or without your consent, is rapidly surrounding you, and in-relation to which some adjustment on

your part may be necessary. ,A hint pf Camlet's, hfiweyer, teaphes us all hovr the troubles of common life may be ended • and; it' is perfectly possible for you and me to purchase intellectual peace at the price of intellectual death. The world Is not without refuge's of this

despription ; nor is it wanting in persons who seejc their shelter and try to persuade Others to do, the"_ sjarn.e. ! The unstable and the weak will yield to this persuasion, and they to whom repose is sweeter than the truth. But I would exhort you to refuse the offered shelter and to scorn the base repose—to accept, if the choice be forced upon you, commotion before stagnation, the leap of the torrent before the stillness of the swamp.. In the course of this Address I have

touched oh debatable questiqns apd. led you qve? what will be aeemed dangerous ground.—and this partly with the view of felling y°u that as regards these questions science claims unrestricted right of search. It is not to the point to say that the views af Lucretius and BruEo, of Darwin and Spencer, rn^y' be wron^. fieri I'should agree with you, deeming ii i^deedT certain, that .these view? will undergo mpdification. l?ut the point is, |nftt, whether rip;hf; pr : wrfing, we ask' the t|iei fr-epdom to discuss them. 1 For sc|enpe 4 however, no explusivejclaim 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. Wot in each of these, but in all, is human nature whole^ They are not opposed, but supplementary —not mutually exclusive, but reconcilable. And if, unsatisfied with them all, the human mind, with the yearning of a pilgrim for his distant home, will turn to the Mystery from which it has emerged, seeking so,to fashion it as to give unity to thought and faith; so long as>this is done, not only Without intolerance 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 restrictions 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.

" * Fill thy heart with- it,' said Goethe, 'and then name it as thou wilt.' Goethe himself did this in untranslateable language (1). Wordsworth did, it "in words known to all Englishmen,, and which may be regarded as a forecast and religious vitalization of the latest./ and deepest scientific truth, — "> 1 For I hare learned To look on nature ; not as hi the.hour.. Of thoughtless youth; bud hearing often- : times ' •■•'■ The still, cad music of humanity, Nor harsh uor grating, though of ample • power ■ ' ■ To chasten and subdue. And Ihdvefelt A 'presence that disturbs me with the joy Of elevated thoughts ; a sense sublime, : ' Of something far more deeply interfused, Wltose dwelling is tiie light of setting sziiis, And the round ocean,and the living ait",,- ■': And the bine sJcy, and in the mind bfyhan: ; A motion and a spirit, thed impels All thinJci/.tg tilings, all objects of all thought, And rolls through all things? (2>) : '

(1) Prooeniium to ' Gott and Welt.' (2) Tintern Abbey. :