are told that you and I have come here to-night because we cannot help it— that each one of us is simply compelled to do so by an irresistible necessity. That is a statement which not a single one of us can be induced to believe by any amount of human logic. I will give you an illustration of this. Some years ago I gave a lecture in Bradlaugh's Hall on the subject of human responsibility. We have on such occasions a discussion. Well, an atheist got up to answer nie. He proceeded during about ten minutes to argue that he had come there and mounted that platform under an overwhelming necessity, which he could not help; that I in like manner was under an overwhelming necessity to go there and lecture, and that the audience had gone there under similar circumstances. Now I found that there was no occasion to expend more than five or six sentences in answering him, because the whole of the auditory turned round and laughed in his face. I am not quite sure that it would not be judicious in such cases to follow the general principle which the late Lord Melbourne laid down whatever his defects, he was certainly a very shrewd, worldly-wise man. When an objectionable or stupid proposal was started, he was in the habit of saying: "Cannot you leave the thing alone?" I think we might almost say the same with regard to Messrs. Huxley, Tyndall, and others, and follow this good advice, and leave these men to commit moral and intellectual suicide; for that is really what it comes to. There is not a single sentence which Professor Tyndall has uttered in the speech here referred to which does not absolutely contradict the principles he is laying down. Let us take the passage which is given in this paper, on page 93, and upon which he dwells at great length. “Amid all our speculative uncertainty, there is one practical point as clear as the day, namely, that the brightness and the usefulness of life, as well as its darkness and disaster, depend, to a great extent, upon our own use of this miraculous organ," i.c. the brain. It seems, then, according to Professor Tyndal, that there is a we who use the brain. Yet, according to the same authority the brain is myself. It is therefore absurd on his principles to talk of the use we make of the brain. If we are nothing but a chain of conscious impressions linked together by an irresistible necessity, we must go on grinding out results for ever, which we cannot help grinding; but in asking us to accept such a theory he invites us to part company with our consciousness and our common sense. Are we to believe that all the activities in the city of London on this very day are nothing but a number of series of inevitable necessities ? It is impossible to believe this by any amount of logic he can adduce in support of such a proposition. The great danger to be encountered is this. Professor Tyndall has a great scientific reputation, but here he is dealing with questions he has never studied any more than I have studied the special scientific questions with which he deals. He proceeds to utter before promiscuous auditories a set of oracles on questions which he has never studied. The auditories whom he addresses, for the most part of semi-educated people who go to hear him in consequence of his high character in matters of physical science, are apt to forget that

he is as ignorant as they are on most points of mental and moral science. They accept him as a great authority, and thus a great deal of nonsense is swallowed by a large number of people as scientific truth. I don't see how it is possible to meet him in this respect, except by sending a body of lecturers after him. For my own part, I think great advantage might be derived if a set of caustic tracts were published, taking up these questions. The only way of dealing with these matters is to appeal to the hard facts of every-day life; if this were done, I say that, whatever powers of reasoning on logic or science Professor Tyndall might bring to bear upon this question, he would commit a moral and intellectual suicide in attempting to prove that he himself is simply impelled by overwhelming necessity to contradict the great facts of consciousness (cheers).

Mr. D. HOWARD.-I have heard this paper with a rather special interest, because the great fact of its being written by a man, and a very able man, living in the full freedom of American thought, which some of us may think verges on licence, gives it a special interest. The accusation might be brought against most of us that we are too fond of our old ways, and not prepared for the new truths which these preachers, of what I suppose they would consider a new revelation, would give us. It is perfectly true that most of us do not desire a new revelation, but would rather say that the old is the better; but if there could be a free unbiassed field for anything quite new, I think you would find it on the other side of the Atlantic, where there is no prejudice in favour of the old, but, if anything, an over-prejudice in favour of the new. This, I think, does give a special value to the full, able criticism which we have here of Professor Tyndall's paper. To find how thoroughly his novelties are no novelties at all to able thinkers on the other side of the Atlantic, to find that there is nothing that can turn a clear head living amidst all the activity and novelty of American thought, is a very satisfactory thing, and one well worthy our attention in dealing with this question. I must say that I do most fully agree with the reply made so ably by Mr. Row, that it is better to leave Prof. Tyndall to himself. It is undoubtedly one of the painful facts of the present time, that there should be so much of atheistical thought amongst us, but yet it is not new. It is the same old story ever since thinking began. There is one thing which is most astonishing, and that is, how a man of Prof. Tyndall's abilities, and with all the premises before him, can come to such utterly false conclusions. There is only one interpretation of this that occurs to my mind, and that is fatal to Prof. Tyndall's whole theory. It is that he will not see. One of the most extraordinary things, even in material science, is the remarkable power of the will to abuse the judgment. A man cannot and will not believe on the clearest evidence what the doctor tells him about his own health. He will not believe the evidence of his own senses as to some great catastrophe. He will not believe that ruin has come upon him. What does this show? If thinking is a mere function of the brain, do we find that phenomena are obstinate, do we find that our balances cannot and will not turn for no reason whatever? I never

found it so in my limited experience. We find one thing, namely, that material forces act invariably, we find that the mind will not act as it ought to do. The unbiassed man sees a thing perfectly clearly which the biassed cannot and will not see; and this shows that there is something more powerful than the function of the brain. The immaterial, undefined, unscientific will acts, after all, more powerfully than the material brain, and I can only say that the obstinate refusal of some of these great scientists to see how utterly unscientific they are when engaged upon theological questions, is one of the most curious proofs that there is a will, and that that will is utterly contrary to the mere physical laws, because it has an utter want of that reason which is found in the material world.

Mr. J. ENMORE JONES.-After reading this paper yesterday I thought, Why is it that Prof. Tyndall has taken the views he has expressed? I knew that he was reared at the feet of Robert Owen. I knew he was chemical tutor in Owen's educational establishment in Hampshire. What a lad gets into his brain when a lad, often continues right through his life. I therefore feel that his theological views having been saturated, as it were, into his very life's core by Robert Owen, who was, you know, an atheist for a considerable time ; that may have influenced him in his thinkings and his doings. At the same time I cannot find fault with Tyndall, because he is a splendid examiner of the materials which the Creator has created. Tyndall is doing a mighty good, and if we will attend to what he is discovering, I have no doubt but that we shall perceive he is laying a foundation which will be of great use to the Church. In future time this will be seen. I do not see that the paper proves anything.

Rev. C. L. ENGSTRÖM.-I should like to say a few words upon one point. I think that Prof. Tyndall has warred against good sense. Suppose I held his views and were arguing with one who held the views I really hold, I should be bound to say, "You who believe that the world has not existed more than a few thousand years, must regard the instincts which are in yourself as implanted from without; but I, who hold the world to have existed for endless years, must see that every universal instinct in the human heart or mind must have grown up from an agreement with the phenomena surrounding it; and therefore, whenever I find such a universal instinct as a belief in God or a belief in free will, I, holding the development theory, must regard this as not implanted by some being for injurious purposes, but as the result of my nature having been brought, during millions of years, into exact accordance with surrounding facts. And therefore, every universal instinct, including belief in God and belief in free will, is, if the development theory be carried to its fullest extent, shown to be absolutely and necessarily true."

Rev. J. FISHER, D.D.—I regard this as a very important paper. It has been said that Dr. Porter has proved nothing; but I hold that he has proved a great deal. I think that the secret with regard to Prof. Tyndall's launching out into various branches of philosophy, metaphysics, and theology, and making such sad blunders, is that it arises from what is

brought out in the second page. The paper eulogises both Tyndall and Huxley, one as physicist and the other as a physiologist. It cannot be too highly commended in this respect. They are quite at home in their proper departments. Prof. Tyndall is clear in physics, but in no other thing which he throws out. Here is what the paper says: They have "the honour of having demonstrated, each in his own way, that a discipline of classical culture, or of early literary studies, is by no means essential to the training of an effective popular speaker or lecturer upon the severest topics of science." One has embraced physics and the other physiology, and this is the reason why they go so far astray upon these points. Had they studied in Oxford or Cambridge, or in any other of our universities, they would have had both more modesty with regard to those who labour in other departments of literature, and would not have made so many mistakes in their own. Had they studied logic under Whately, or in some other school where they would have been trained in a similar way, they would have made better definitions, they would have used more precise language, and they would have reasoned from true premises, and would have drawn fuil and true conclusions. But their definitions are all wrong. We have been told (page 90) that we should protest. I think we may join in the protest at page 82, where a definition is given of the human body as a machine. A definition should include the whole. A machine is not an organism. An organism has life, and grows. The definition, therefore, is wrong, and the premises are wrong. How, then, can they bring forth truth from such premises and such definitions? I think it is the early training of these men that has been defective. They have gone into matters they have never studied. They have literature and theology and wrapped them round their science, thinking that all must be science, all must be physics, all must be physiology.

Mr. E. R. GAYER.-There is just one sentence in this very able paper to which I must take objection. It is on the top of page 93: "If this agent or force within is nothing more than an idealized abstraction, this abstraction discoursed most eloquently from the chair of the Midland Institute on the 1st of October." I think the writer has made a mistake in introducing this sentence. This, it appears to me, is no answer to Prof. Tyndall's position. It is precisely the same, to go back to Dr. Johnson, as the answer Dr. Johnson thought he had given to Berkeley, when he told him if he only went and knocked his head against the wall he would soon perceive whether it was a solid or not. That was perfectly absurd, and showed that Dr. Johnson did not understand the Berkeleian theory. This, I This, I say, is equally absurd. The true answer would be, "If you say that mind and soul are mere abstractions, how can you show that these batteries and forces, and different things of the realistic properties of which you speak, are not abstractions also " ? *

*Mr. Gayer, in his speech, added :-"The only other objection that occurs to me has reference to two words on page 87, where Prof. Porter says his body

To

Rev. Mr. GORMAN.-I rise with some hesitation and diffidence, in the absence of the writer of this paper, to say a few words on the principal question, which has been put before us with so much skill and fairness. The last speaker, it seems to me, has not quite clearly caught the precise point of Professor Porter's reasoning. The argument is plainly a reductio ad absurdum, exactly similar in its purport to what I must regard as the very conclusive answer of Dr. Johnson, to which reference has been made. No one is bound even to try to understand flimsy and unintelligible hypotheses such as that of Bishop Berkeley, or any other form of visionary idealism which manifestly contradicts the plainest dictates of common sense. this principle of common sense, against all forms of unreasonable speculation, every one has the right of appeal as the last resort. The principle which Professor Porter evidently had in his mind was the seemingly simple, but really most profound saying of Bishop Butler-" abstractions can do nothing." And this is, in fact, the principle which lies at the root of the whole discussion. To any mind that has firmly grasped it, the exposure of Professor Tyndall's fallacies becomes a very easy matter. His speculations, for the most part, as soon as he leaves his own peculiar line of study, are nothing but abstractions-the most empty of abstractions, woven together dexterously, under the influence of a fervid imagination. They have nothing to do either with a rational psychology or with philosophy in general, much less with the sacred mysteries which lie within the sphere and dominion of theology, the queen and mistress of all the sciences. It cannot be too often repeated in commenting on the eloquent and highly imaginative lucubrations of that class of physicists of which Professor Tyndall is a type, that from the point of view of mere physical science, it is, to say the least, unbecoming, if it be not an impertinence in them, to speak magisterially upon questions which lie entirely outside the field of their special studies. If it seem good to them to ascend to the higher level of intellectual and spiritual thought, they are bound to assume the truth of those rational first principles and axioms which all wise men, in ancient and modern times, have agreed to accept as starting points in the study of the deepest problems of nature and life. As soon as they do this there will be some hope of our coming to an understanding with them. Our controversies will then have a chance of ceasing to be what, for the most part, they have

grows by cellular accession from living food.' By the way, I am not quite sure whether it is Prof. Tyndall or Dr. Porter who says this; but whoever it is I cannot understand it. Unless a man live solely on oysters or cheese, I cannot understand how this is to be explained." To this Dr. Porter replies "To relieve my critic from the imagined necessity of being driven to the necessity of living solely on oysters and cheese,' by the logic of his interpretation of the phrase 'cellular accession from living food,' I would say that by living food I meant food, or pabulum, which by the action of a living agent has been prepared to be assimilated in cellular accession,' and in that sense made living."