possible to remove the odium and the palpable evils associated with revivalism as at present carried on.

Before any person is admitted to conduct revival services in our churches means should be adopted to ascertain the following things concerning him :

Is he a person of good moral character?

Is he possessed of the gifts requisite to enable him to present truth in a clear and striking form, without descending to vulgarity, or violating the proprieties of religious service?

Is he in sympathy with the regular ministry?

Is he in sympathy with the doctrines and organization of the Church employing him?

Is he a judicious and disinterested man?

Unless these questions can be answered in the affirmative respecting any agent it is proposed to employ, it would be decidedly better for the Church to be without him. But the possession of the requisite qualifications could only be ascertained by the existence of some central authority to which candidates for evangelistic work might be rendered amenable. And we submit that no authority having this special object in view at present exists in our Church organisation.

In consideration, therefore, of the evident necessity for revivalistic effort, of the wide spread demand for revivalists, and of the evils at present arising from their employment, we ask whether the time has not fully come when the subject should be taken up and treated as a matter for legislative action. The rapid growth of our community, and consequent increase of business and pastoral responsibility thrown on the regular ministry, render it simply impossible for them to devote that amount of attention to purely evangelistic labours that is required; whereas, by the creation of a special class of evangelists, within our denominational organisation, and subject to legal control and discipline, this deficiency would not only be met, but the demand for revivalists would be supplied by a class of persons whose interests would be identified with the stability of the Church, and an obstacle thus be taken out of the way of the prosperity and usefulness of the denomination. MARAHG.

ART. V.-PROFESSOR TYNDALL'S INAUGURAL

ADDRESS.

Address delivered before the British Association assembled at Belfast. With additions by JOHN TYNDALL, F.R.S., President.. London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1874. Fifth Thousand. THIS address, delivered in the autumn of 1874, from the chair

of the principal scientific assembly in Great Britain, produced. a profound impression. To many it appeared a deliberate attack

upon the cherished beliefs of the nation, and an attempt to destroy the faith that had been the comfort and hope of generations. Its argument, if valid, seemed to reduce God to a figment of fancy, and to melt man's immortality into the infinite azure of the past. By strange concurrences, and as the outcome of a process of unknown duration, man secured for a few years a kingly position, was then resolved into an elementary state, and began, within the circles of an inexorable fate, a second journey to nobody knew whither. Rejoinders of various merit were speedily issued; and it may, perhaps, be open to question whether there is much wisdom in asking any further attention to the address. We, however, take the benefit of the doubt, and make the venture. The effect of the address cannot be due to any great worth which it possesses. It advances no new scientific discovery; it does not place in any fresh or striking light previous scientific speculations; it contains much conjectural science; and is disfigured by not a few inconsistencies. The effect produced by it may, perhaps, be attributed to the scientific repute of its author, and the presidential chair from which he delivered it, rather than to any intrinsic merit. There is not much wisdom in permitting the utterances of men of science to create such wide-spread alarm. These panics indicate weakness somewhere. Truth is one, and the establishment of what is true can never be an ultimate disadvantage and detriment to men. Let us fully allow all research, and welcome the results which men bring to the light, or think they bring to the light; only let us, as well as we may be able, critically test and examine them, so as to satisfy ourselves as to their truth. Religious faith cannot really fear any light which science can shed upon it. Contrariety there may be even within the province of truth, but not contradiction.

Professor Tyndall begins his address by affirming that "an impulse inherent in primeval man turned his thoughts and questionings betimes towards the sources of natural phenomena.' He wished to know something concerning the whence of himself, and other existence. He could not be satisfied with the simple fact that he and all other things of which he was cognizant were. He was compelled to inquire not only what things were, and how things were, but whence they were, and why they were. For the whence involves the why, and an enquiry respecting the one embraces the other. To know "the sources of natural phenomena," is to know the reason of them; for though there is an evident distinction between what is denominated efficient and final cause, yet there is a connection so close, that questionings respecting the one carry along with them inquiry respecting the other. This impulse is said to be the spur of scientific action to-day; and determined by it, men form "by a process of abstraction from experience, physical theories which lie beyond the pale of experience,

but which satisfy the desire of the mind to see every natural occurrence resting upon a cause." The first three sentences uttered by Professor Tyndall at Belfast contain a series of important admissions, from the influence of which subsequent declarations cannot be allowed to escape. Man, by a necessity of his nature, is compelled to inquire into the origin of things; he approaches this origin through experience, but experience cannot conduct him to it; his theorising has to assume a cause not furnished by experience, for it lies beyond the pale of experience; and this cause has to be adequate and sufficient, so as to satisfy the demands of the mind. Physical science is here acknowledged to be incompetent to guide man along the whole journey he wishes to travel-nay, not only wishes, but is compelled to travel. It furnishes no information about the origin of things; it utters not a syllable respecting the unity of things; it depends for the value of its investigations, and the validity of its conclusions, upon resources it does not furnish, and which lie beyond the pale of its experimental data. This is admitted from the chair of the highest scientific assembly in Britain, and the admission is amply illustrated throughout the whole address.

The atomic theory is in great favour just now among leading physicists, and to an exposition of its earlier and later forms, a considerable portion of Professor Tyndall's address, is devoted. The exposition does not distinguish very clearly between things which differ, nor pay the respect that might be expected to prefixed admissions. Is the atomic theory a theory of origin or of method? Does it undertake to deal with the whence, or the how, or with both? The exposition contains no distinct and express recognition of this distinction, and yet it is a destruction of prime importance in relation to science and philosophy. There are references made to the origin of things, and the allsufficient cause of things; but when we come to interrogate these references we find them to simply apply to variety of combination and relation assumed by already existing atoms. They concern process and not origin; and are explanations of method rather than affirmations of cause. Take the Democritan form of atomism. "From nothing comes nothing. Nothing that exists can be destroyed. All changes are due to the combination and separation of molecules. Nothing happens by chance. Every occurrence has its cause from which it follows by necessity. The only existing things are the atoms and empty space; all else is mere opinion. The atoms are infinite in number and infinitely various in form; they strike together, and the lateral motions and whirlings which thus arise are the beginnings of worlds. The varieties of all things depend upon the varieties of their atoms in number, size, and aggregation." This is given not

merely as the Democritan theory, but as a fair, general statement of the atomic philosophy as now held. Now what is there in all this relating to the origin, or all-sufficient cause of things? Absolutely nothing. Here are atoms infinite in number and various in form, and all in motion; and through this motion, fortuitously, or perhaps as some would prefer to say through affinity and repulsion, these atoms build up worlds, and form the varied phenomena of the universe. It is a theory of method this, and not a theory of origin at all. If man by an inherent impulse of his nature inquires into the sources of phenomena, he will want to know whence these atoms have come so infinite in number and so various in form; he will anxiously ask whence this motion through which these atoms separate and combine and build up the universe; and until these questions are answered the sources of phenomena are to him unreached, and the imperious demands of his intellect unsatisfied. This theory embraces all actual existence and possible combination to begin with; and this allowed, without any difficulty the universe is gained. But this is precisely what cannnot be allowed, for this existence and these possibilities are the very things to be accounted for. When everything is put into the juggler's hat that has to come out of it, the feat is easily performed. But, then, this does not satisfy the requirements of philosophy. The atoms and their combinations are the phenomena themselves and not the sources of the phenomena; for method in the universe is, after all, but phenomenal, and it seems rather like sharp practice to substitute the phenomena themselves for the sources of phenomena, and to offer a theory of process instead of a theory of origin. And as a theory of method the atomic philosophy is defective. Phenomena cannot be explained by themselves. We may be told what is, and within the limits of the phenomenal it may be stated how it is. But is this a sufficient and satisfactory explanation? Does it meet those inherent demands of man's nature to which Professor Tyndall refers? We venture to think not, and Professor Tyndall himsef admits as much when he grants that the philosophic yearnings of the human mind are only satisfied when they transcend the sphere of experience and rest in the doctrine of efficient cause. The whence-aye-and the why are necessary to a satisfactory explanation of the what and the how.

The incompetency of the atomic philosophy to meet the demands which man, by the inherent impulses and requirements of his nature is compelled to make, is admitted by Professor Tyndall in his references to Epicurus. To this philosopher the gods were "eternal and immortal beings, whose blessedness excluded every thought of care or occupation of any kind. Nature pursued her course, according to everlasting laws, the gods never

interfering." Lange, in his history of "Materialism," regards this relation of Epicurus to the gods as subjective, indicating an ethical requirement of his own nature. And this view Professor Tyndall endorses, adding: "We cannot read history with open eyes, or study human nature to its depths, and fail to discern such a requirement. Man never has been, and he never will be satisfied with the operations and products of the understanding alone; hence, physical science cannot cover all the demands of his nature." We accept this admission, and proceed to ask what it contains. A philosophy of the universe from which intelligence is excluded is obviously impossible; forbidden by certain requirements which have their ground in human nature, and which, because this nature is what it is, imperatively demand to be satisfied. What are these ethical requirements? Evidently in the estimation of Professor Tyndall, order, harmony, unity, equity, and intelligence. For these man's nature cries out, and short of these it refuses to be satisfied. A godless universe, a mindless universe, is by this admission declared impossible; since it is a contradiction of the ethical requirements of man's nature, and materialism is an untenable hypothesis. Intelligence, it seems after all, is supreme, and not only may, but must, dwell at the heart of things. Physics have to be supplemented by metaphysics. Man won't be put off with the former; can't be put off with it. He demands the latter. To those who seek by physical theory and material speculation to explain phenomena, he says: "very good as far you go, but this is not all. I observe the phenomena, and take note of their relations, adjustments, succession, and interdependence; but I must go beyond this. Whence this order, this harmony, this unity, this interdependence? By what power are these diverse phenomena thus ordered, related, harmonised, and unified? I cannot stop where you ask me to stop. I am compelled by the ' ethical requirements of my nature' to go further. What answer have you to give to these deeper questions"? This is the attitude of humanity, an attitude acknowledged by physicists themselves. And to us this acknowledgment is an abandonment of materialism. The atomic philosophy is acknowledged by its advocates unable to furnish an account of the origin of things-indeed, when strictly interrogated it denies origin altogether, and it is only by confounding origin and method through the practice of a species of word-juggling that it is able to speak of the "all-sufficient cause of things." It is incompetent to answer the deeper inquiries that man by the "inherent impulses" of his nature is compelled to make. It is only a philosophy of the universe in pretension. A legitimate ontology it cannot furnish; and ridiculed as ontological investigation may be by leading physicists, man will not and cannot be satisfied without it. There are