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and discredit to science on its own account,-leaving the question of revelation altogether out of consideration.

I have alluded to Halley, Laplace, and other atheists, infidels or unbelievers, who, as individuals, have no doubt been glad to find what they considered to be scientific contradictions of God's Revealed Word. But that is not all. Not merely have some pursued science in that spirit; but others have been found who have boldly put forth the opinion that the inductive philosophy of Bacon is necessarily atheistic in its principle and foundation; and they have even claimed Bacon himself as an atheist, and accused him of being a mere hypocrite in his religious professions! Not only have the atheists themselves put this forth as a boast, but the same accusations have been strangely re-echoed by others in their over zeal for faith and religion! Thus has Bacon been libelled and his philosophy misrepresented, by ungrateful and unfaithful followers on the one hand, and by the avowed enemies of all scientific investigation on the other.

But the real truth is, that science has become, in our day, materialistic and wildly speculative, entirely through a disregard of Lord Bacon's principles, and in spite of his actual warnings. Moreover, certain branches only of human knowledge have been cultivated by too many professed followers of Bacon, and the higher and connecting links of general philosophy have been too much neglected. "Hitherto (he says) the industry of man has been great and curious in noting the variety of things, and in explaining the accurate differences of animals, vegetables, and minerals, many of which are rather the sport of nature than of any real utility to science. Things of this sort are amusing, and, sometimes, not without practical use, but they contribute little or nothing towards the investigation of nature." (Nov. Org., ii., 27.) And elsewhere: "By means of these we have a minute knowledge of things, but scanty and often unprofitable information with respect to science. Yet these are the things of which common natural history makes a boast." (Descrip. Globi Intellect., c. iii.)—In reading these passages, one almost might imagine he had been describing by anticipation the so-called natural science of the present day. True, we have speculations enough, and theories in addition, but they are rash and ill-considered, because the sciences have been too much separated, and the great majority have devoted their minds to the details of some narrow speciality. But what says Bacon ?—

"Let no one expect great progress in the sciences (especially their operative part) unless natural philosophy be applied to particular sciences, and they

again be referred back to natural philosophy. Hence it arises that astronomy, optics, music, many mechanical arts, medicine itself, and what seems more wonderful, moral and political philosophy, have no depth, but only glide over the surface and variety of things; because (mark this reason) these sciences, having once been partitioned out and established, are no longer nourished by natural philosophy. Then there is little cause for wonder that the sciences do not grow, when they are separated from their roots." (Nov. Org., i., 80.)

Again :

"Generally let this be a rule, that all partitions of knowledges [sciences] be accepted rather for lines and veins, than for sections and separations; and that the continuity and entireness of knowledge be preserved. For the contrary hereof hath made particular sciences to become barren, shallow, and erroneous, while they have not been nourished or maintained from the common fountain."-(Adv. of Learn., B. ii.)

It is very true that Bacon deprecated, as a "philosophical calamity," the excursions of final causes into the limits of physical causes. But he did not, therefore, as some have rashly concluded, banish final causes from his scheme of true philosophy altogether. On the contrary, he contemplates the sciences, generally, as all comprehended in one pyramid of the Truth of things or Philosophy proper, founded, indeed, upon the basis of a knowledge of the varied facts of nature, but having an apex in the intelligence of Deity. Far from participating, in the least, in any atheistic notions, he thus expresses himself:-"It is easier to believe the most absurd fables of the Koran, the Talmud, and the Legends, than to believe that the world was made without understanding. Hence, God has wrought no miracles for the refutation of Atheism, because, to this end, His regular works in nature are sufficient." (Ess. on Atheism.) And thus it was, also, that he regarded "Natural Philosophy as properly the Handmaid of Religion," and not, as some regard it in our day, as its antagonist.

But nothing could be less Baconian than to endeavour to establish any philosophical position by an appeal to any authority, even though it were an appeal to his own great name. In thus vindicating his memory from misrepresentation, I have had no wish to employ the argumentum ad verecundiam. On the contrary, I would appeal to Bacon, mainly because he taught us to cast off all mere authority in science, and to trust to the mind itself, with all the independent aids to reason with which we are amply furnished by nature. Let me cite, however, one other witness as to the present unsatisfactory condition of science, attributable to its over-subdivision into branches, and the undue influence of scientific coteries in the

present day; too much like what it was when unreformed in Bacon's own time. I cite from the "Introduction to Anthropology," by the late Dr. Theodore Waitz, Professor of Philosophy in Marburg University :

"In Germany (writes the learned Professor) it is at present a common case that in the fields of the various sciences, and even within the limits of a single science, opposite theories grow up, without their respective propounders taking any notice of one another's views, or making any attempt to reconcile their contradictory dogmas. The strength of party comes in place of strength of reasoning; and the labour of giving scientific proofs seems superfluous, where deference is merely yielded to the authority of those who, agreeing in some general principles, appear to support one another with the instinctive interest of an esprit de corps. With the same kind of tact, all that has grown upon a foreign stock is silently passed over or eliminated, while only what seems homogeneous is assimilated. Thus scientific life moves in individual narrow spheres, and the more comprehensive and fundamental principles are no longer discussed."

It is in order to provide a remedy for this state of things that the founders of the Victoria Institute agreed that its third object shall be :

"To consider the mutual bearings of the various scientific conclusions arrived at in the several distinct branches into which Science is now divided,, in order to get rid of contradictions and conflicting hypotheses, and thus promote the real advancement of true Science; and to examine and discuss all supposed scientific results with reference to final causes and the more comprehensive and fundamental principles of Philosophy proper, based upon faith in the existence of one Eternal God, who, in His wisdom, created all things very good."

This object is surely one, at least, which requires no apology as yet in England. It assumes, no doubt, a fundamental principle-the existence of the all-wise God. It therefore precludes the advocacy of atheistic theories in the Society. It need scarcely be said it does so, simply because its members and associates, as indeed the great mass of the scientific and unscientific, of the literate and illiterate alike, in this country, have no manner of doubt whatever of the truth so assumed. And this being the case, it is in fact to be only straightforwardly honest, to say that that constitutes a major proposition, which must necessarily override and ipso facto overthrow all opposite and conflicting hypotheses. To teach that truth and to establish it, pertains to the ministers of religion, and, therefore, it is excluded, as a question to be investigated, from the objects of the Victoria Institute. So are all purely religious or theological propositions. Science, in all its branches and ramifications, is

what the Society will be properly occupied with. And, convinced that no real science will be found to be contradictory to the revealed Truth of God as set forth in the Holy Scriptures, all questions of science about which there may be doubts in this respect, or which some may have alleged to be thus at issue with the Bible, will especially claim the attention of the members. One great means of carrying out this object and pursuing such investigations, will be the co-relating, when that is possible, the conclusions arrived at in one branch of science with those arrived at in another; so also discovering their discordance, when the supposed scientific conclusions are at issue.

It would be easy to give instances in detail of such conflicting theories and conclusions put forward in the present day. It is almost unnecessary. Everybody must see and admit that contradictory theories cannot both be true; both cannot be regarded as science. Nay, it must further be manifest, that our "science" of the Cosmos must be discredited and not believed in as "science" at all, even among the reputedly scientific, if they themselves are looking out for still further explanations, or are entertaining, putting forward, or quietly listening to, ever new theories in existing scientific societies.

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I may with propriety give one single instance of this kind of thing, respecting what has long been regarded as the highest science in this country, and indeed in Christendom, for upwards of a hundred years at least. I allude to the Copernican Astronomy as modified by Kepler, and interpreted by Sir Isaac Newton's theory of universal gravitation. I leave out of consideration a subsequent modification of the system arising from the first Herschel's notion of Solar Motion. in Space, which after being received by astronomers as science," confirmed by all their calculations since 1783, was recently assailed as untenable, and shortly afterwards admitted by the Astronomer Royal to be now in "doubt and abeyance!" I leave this out, therefore, of consideration-though it too is a notable instance of what was long regarded as a "scientific fact" turning out to be a "mere delusion,"-and wish to speak only of conclusions supposed to be established by mathematical proof in Newton's "Principia." Not only are all Newton's demonstrations based upon the assumption that the heavenly bodies are moving in what is called "free space," or " spaces void of resistance;" but this was the notorious difference in the Cosmos, between the rival theories of Newton and Des cartes. When Voltaire came to visit Newton in England, he wrote to a friend, that "he had left the world full at Paris(referring to the "plenum" of Descartes and Aristotle) but

"found it was empty in London!" And yet our own Astronomer Royal made the announcement at the first meeting of the British Association, in 1831, "that the existence of a resisting medium has once more been established in this century by Encke." (Rep. on Astr., in loc.) No individual astronomer I believe, nor any existing scientific society, has made it its business to see what effect this restoration of "the plenum" must have upon all Newton's and Laplace's demonstrations in the "Principia" and "Mécanique Celeste," in both of which the non-existence of a resisting medium is taken for granted. Not only so; but recent theories, put forward by Professor Thomson before the Royal Society of Edinburgh and elsewhere, and also by others in England, assuming an intense heat in the sun, are utterly irreconcilable with the Newtonian hypothesis that, as the centre of the solar system, it must have a mass 350,000 times greater than the earth, while about 1,400,000 times greater in bulk.* If as hot as has been recently speculated, as its bulk remains the same (namely, about 850,000 miles in diameter), then its mass will not be 1,000 times greater than that of the earth; and, on Newtonian principles, this would render its being the centre of the solar system impossible. Any child can understand, that if the calculation which required the sun's mass to be 350,000 times greater than that of the earth, was science, it cannot be also "science" that its mass should be so reduced that it can only be about 1,000 times greater. Nor is this all. These speculations, as to the sun's intense heat, have required the co-relative theory of some means of supplying the immense waste of matter by heat and radiation. So, it has further been speculated that this was accomplished by meteoric matter which was supposed to be falling constantly into the sun to supply it with fuel. This theory was noticed approvingly by the President of the British Association in 1863, and the fullest account of it is to be found in two papers by Mr. E. W. Brayley, F.R.S., in the "Companion to the British Almanack." But scarcely had this theory been completed, as it were, in detail, and recognized as "a reasonable supposition" by the President of the British Association, than all of a sudden Mr. Brayley, who formerly appeared to be one of its staunchest advocates, put forward, in the Royal Society, another theory as diametrically opposed to it as

* Vide Letter of "Nauticus," in the Astronomical Register for February, 1865, p. 49. (London: Adams & Francis, Fleet Street.) Also, Essay on "The Scriptures and Science," in Fresh Springs of Truth. (London: Griffin & Co.)

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