Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 6.djvu/443

Rh my first preface, on which the foregoing remark of Bishop Fraser, and similar remarks of his ecclesiastical colleagues, not to mention those of less responsible writers, are founded, I leave the decision of the question whether their mode of presenting this paragraph to the public be straightforward or the reverse.

These minor and more purely personal matters at an end, the weightier allegation remains—that at Belfast I misused my position by quitting the domain of science, and making an unjustifiable raid into the domain of theology. This I fail to see. Laying aside abuse, I hope my accusers will consent to reason with me. Is it not competent for a scientific man to speculate on the antecedents of the solar system? Did Kant, Laplace, and William Herschel, quit their legitimate spheres when they prolonged the intellectual vision beyond the boundary of experience, and propounded the nebular theory? Accepting that theory as probable, is it not permitted to a scientific man to follow up in idea the series of changes associated with the condensation of the nebulæ; to picture the successive detachment of planets and moons, and the relation of all of them to the sun? If I look upon our earth, with its orbital revolution and axial rotation, as one small issue of the process which made the solar system what it is, will any theologian deny my right to entertain and express this theoretic view? Time was when a multitude of theologians would be found to do so—when that arch-enemy of science which now vaunts its tolerance would have made a speedy end of the man who might venture to publish any opinion of the kind. But that time, unless the world is caught strangely slumbering, is forever past.

As regards inorganic Nature, then, I may traverse, without let or hinderance, the whole distance which separates the nebulae from the worlds of to-day. But only a few years ago this now conceded ground of science was theological ground. I could by no means regard this as the final and sufficient concession of theology; and at Belfast I thought it not only my right but my duty to state that, as regards the organic world, we must enjoy the freedom which we have already won in regard to the inorganic. I could not discern the shred of a title-deed which gave any man, or any class of men, the right to open the door of one of these worlds to the scientific searcher, and to close the other against him. And I considered it frankest, wisest, and in the long-run most conducive to permanent peace, to indicate without evasion or reserve the ground that belongs to Science, and to which she will assuredly make good her claim.

Considering the freedom allowed to all manner of opinions in England, surely this was no extravagant position for me to assume. I have been reminded that an eminent predecessor of mine in the presidential chair expressed a totally different view of the Cause of things from that enunciated by me. In doing so he transgressed the bounds