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IVIaps, plates, charts, etc., may be filmed at different reduction ratios. Those too large to be entirely included in one exposure are filmed beginning in the upper left hand corner, left to right and top to bottom, as many frames as required. The following diagrams illustrate the method: Les cartes, planches, tableaux, etc., peuvent dtre film6s i des taux de reduction diff^rents. Lorsque le document est trop grand pour etre reproduit en un seul clich6, il est filmd d partir de Tangle sup6rieur gauche, de gauche d droite, et de haut en bas, en prenant le nombre d'images ndcessaire. Les diagramm&s suivants illustrent la m^thode. 1 2 3 1 2 3 \ 4 5 6 f r SCIENCE AND RELIGION / M AN ADDRESS f PeLIVEHEB at THK PONVOCTION OP /Vicpil,^ pN.VERSITV, May 1ST, 1876. TO THB BACHELORS OF APPLIED SCIEXOE. BY ALEXANDER JOHNSON, M.A., LL.D., Dublin. Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy in the University ■ Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Arts. 'totd^ ^ MONTREAL: iff DAWSON BROTHERS, Publish 187(i. ERS. PREFACE. The Address explains its own origin and object. Here it is only necessary to state why it is published in its present form. It was first printed in one of the city journals, at the request and through the instrumentality of the Graduating Class. I subsequently received requests from different quarters to publish it as a pamphlet. From the reasons offered, and from conversations with several who have heard or read it, I have been led to believe that it may be more widely useful than I at first supposed. It has been revised, and some notes have been added. A. J. ADDRESS. Gentlemen, Bachelors of Applied Science : It is usual, and it is fitting, that the Pro- f(^ssor who, si)eaking on hohalf oi' the Faculty, addresses those who stand in your position from time to time, should, in his partini'' words, not only convey our best wishes for your welfare (in that we must always feel inter- ested), but also give, at the same time, such advice and warning as he may deem most suitable or most neces- sary. The advice may be too often forgotten, the warning may not be heeded ; the address itself, though listened to with respect, may be regarded as only one of the ceremonies of the day ; yet, on the other hand, they may sometimes be useful, and the impressive character of the occasion may stamp them on the mind with a force not to be obtained from ordinary circum- stances. It behoves me, therefore, to consider well how I shall best fulfil my duty in using the present opportu- nity. Which of the several subjects that offer them- selves can be taken up with the greatest advantage to you ? On topics that are specially connected with the practice of your professions, I am not qualified to speak; though, no doubt, you would be glad to get any sug- gestions that might have a relation to your success in life. Advice as to your future studies and future con- duct, and warning as to future dangers in life, I might no doubt convey, and in other years I might probably have tried to fashion them as best I could in a general form. But this year one special subject has pressed 6 itself oil my attention in a way that cannot ho ov«'i- lookod, and I havo had no hesitation in selecting it as a lit theme for my remarks. Success in your profession is greatly to he desired. Progress in your studies is necessary. IJut not of these shall I speak. Nor indeed shall I conline my address to you alone. On the contrary, I shall take advantage of tha opportunity to turn myself to all those who, with you, have, during the last tvA'o years, been attending the lectures in Kxpi'rimental Physics — and not ven to those alon(% — 1 wish that those other students who are in the earlii-r years, and who will attend the lectures that I may yet deliver in these subjects, should consider themselves as addressed. My subject is om^ that has been agitating the minds of many during nearly two years past. A wave of disturbance oriq^inating in the address of the President of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1874 has rolled over the mother country, and crossing the Atlantic, dill'used itself here far and wide. The disturbance then excited, the agitation of men's minds, and the discussions that followed, are still in full vigou.r, not only in Great liritaiii, but here in Canada ; — possibly, they may as yet hs only in their beginning in this country. The discussions are carried on or noticed, not only in books, reviews and pamphlets, but in newspapers and in the social circle. ^Vhen the newspapers teem with quotations from Tyndall, Huxley, Darwin and Herbert Spencer (no later than this morning I saw one from the last mentioned), and the mind of the nation in general is agitated, it is not to be supposed that the student's mind will escape that apprehension which lays hold of many when they are told that Science and Religion are irrecoiicileably at variance. When after thiw, i\w fstudont hears, as ho must do, in his lectuivs, of " molecules," " atoms," ** vibrations," ami other terms which are bandied about so freely in these discussions, he may have some fears that he is (Mitering* on danu^er- ous ground, and a feeling of uneasiness may seize hold of him, though he can see no precise cause for it, Such a result would be not unnatural, and I fancy that I have perceived traces of such uneasiness in questions that have been asked me during the session just closed. I may be wrong, but there seems to be a vague notion abroad, among some at least, that there have been some recent grand discoveries in Science, which, only for the effects of prejudice, would overthrow the very basis of Reliuion ; and in Physics, no less than in the other Sciences. Such a notion must operate prejudici- ally both to Science and to lleligion. To do something to dispel it, if it exist, shall be my endeavour now. In my lectures I could not well have undertaken this, for the very sufficient reason, that there it is my duty to deal with Physical Science alone. To leave this and to go into the region of Metaphysics — for that is what must be done in order to follow those discussions- -might neither be right nor beneficial on the whole. Nor, indeed, shall I do so now beyond one step. 1 shall confine my attention mainly, to showing that there are no good grounds for the impression that what are called the Atheistic or Materialistic concluFions, so loudly proclaimed by certain scientific men, and, among them, by IJr. Tyndall, have any support in Physical Science. The most ready and simple method for effecting this, on an occasion like the present, is to quote the views of other scientific men, none of whom shall be less distinguished than Dr. Tyndall himself, and some of whom occupy, beyond question, a higher position. If I can produce the very smallest effect in helping to destroy 8 th«» iioiion that Scionco really supports the conclusions rcl'crrcd to, I shall have attained my object. It is the mixture of truth with error, oC true scientilic principles and illustrations, which so many can uiulerstand and follow with ])leasure, wilh erroneous metaphysical roasoninjTs slipi)ed in incid(Miially, Jis it were, that causes all the evil. It is my simple duty to do this. You must not be left to suppose from any silence on my part, either that I feel indilferenl to a subject in which all must be deeply interested, or that I fear the streni>th of the arguments for infidelity, or that 1 favour them. That all those whom I address may follow what I say, it is necessary to summarize brielly part of what you have learned in your course. I do so as follow^s : — We learn from C'hemistry that if we take any of the innumerable bodies which the world presents to us, whether it belongs to earth, or sea, or air, whether it be animal, vegetable, or mineral, it will be found when analysed to oiler very little variety in its component l)arts ; that they must belong to a list containing (mly sixty-three ditferent elements, as far as known at the present time. We learn next from Physics that just as solid ice will melt into water, and water again if heated will take to itself wings and ily oil' as invisible vapour, so every solid body, even the very rocks themselves, may be reduced to a liquid state and, from the liquid, change toagaseous or \:aporousstate. And. just as theprocessmay be reversed, the invisible vapour of the air condensing into rain, that rain desceiuling and gathering into streams and rivers, and those rivers being frozen, so we liaA'^e reason to ))elieve that every gas can be reduced by a proper amount of cold, through the liquid to the solid state. Applying these principles along with others, and examining our globe as a whole, we see reason to bolievo that it was once a huafo massofiiovy liquid roll- ing? throniih spaco, surroiindrd ])y intoiisoly In atod vapours; in lad, like in all respects, probably, to the sun at proseut. (loiuo- lartluM- back still, it is possi])le that it may have been in its earlier state a chaotic heap of vapour, ])art, perhaps, ol* an iniuieiisely lartyer mass. That the existence oi' vasi uaseous masses out in space iar bi-yond the boundaries of our little tSolar system is possible, we know to a certainly, throuirh the aid of the spectroscope. That the ejirth miuht have been once like these is (piite po.ssible. And what the earth once was that may all the i)lanets have been. If we picture to ourselves this enormous mass of gas composed of few elements, and these elements themselves consisting of almost infinitely small particles, particles so small that they must be united in millions to be vi.si])le under the most powerful microscoj)i', which particles aiie called molecules ; (and not unfrequently atoms*) and then imagine these molecules in constant agitation, never at rest for a single instant, and moreover repell- ing or attracting one another, we have before us a general idea of what Physical Science presents as the not improbable .state from which the present condition of the frame of the earth has been derived. In this way the formation of the earth would have followed the ordt'r of the stt'ps ])y which atrial vapoiir becomes solid ice. IJut modern discoveries point out that it would be also quite possible to have the process reversed for a solid body like the earth in its present state. For the Dynamical Theory of Heat shows us that if the earth came into collision with another suiliciently large body in space ; nay, if without coming into collis- • '-An atom, if thorc is amii a tliinjj:, nnist lie a inoltculf of an eli- montaiy suhstance." '< Kveiy inolcLiiK' i.s not an aton), but I'vcry atom is a moleculi'.' — Prof. Clerk Maxwell, Lecture on Moloculcp. 10 ion at all, it wore merely stox)pod suddenly in its course, it would be not merely wrapped hi flames, but there would be sulHcient heat to turn a great part of it into vapour. And there is good reason to suppose that collisions do take place in space. We have innumerable examples of them, on a small scale, in those meteoric stones which, coming out of the regions through which the earth speeds its course, and rushing through the atmosphere and striding against its surface, are melted or vaporized in part, if not wholly. All this is taught by Physical ^Science as possible, and there is nothing whatever in it inconsistent with either Natural or Revealed religion. There can be no doubt that the views which it presents thus ave won- derfully fascinating. Those vibrations of the molecules, their attractions and repulsions, which existed during the ji'aseous state, are still continued. It seems like a fairy tale to think, when we look around on the walls, the benches, and other solid objects in this hall, that the little particles which compose these apparently quiescent bodies are ruohing to and fro, backwards and forwards, pulling or pushing one another. Or, to take a still more receu t advance in scientilic views, that the air about us when in its very quietest condition has all its particles in sim.ilar agitation ; that they dash about us with a lierce velocity of about seventy miles a minute, (through very short distances, however, because they come into rude collision, one with another), and that what we call the piessure of the air on our bodies, is caused by their incessant })eating upon us, pelting us as with a hail-storm ; that, in short, when we look at a barometer, and see the mercury rise or the index turn, we see only the results of variations in the pelting of this storm. Or, again, think of these incessantly chang- ing bodies which we call ours, but wliieh are not our- selves, bodies which are not exactly the same now as 11 when we entered this hall, which will l)e diili'rent again when we leave it, which alter with every breath we draw ; bodies which we chano-e in their entirety- several times duriii"- our life. Does it not strike us with wonder and with awe to reflect that the very elements of them, which are for a moment at our com- mand, should have been tossed to and fro, ai»es of ai»'es ago, in that nebulous mist far-reaching into space, which is now condensed into the firm earth on which we stand ^ This, I repeat, is all taught us by Physical Science, but you know that we have not absolute di'monstration for it, nor even for any part of it. Not <'ven for the theory of gravitation, which is the most firmly estab- lished of all theories, have we what is equivalent to a mathematical demonstration. We have only prohnhiliti/; probability, it is true, of a very high order in some cases, sufficiciit to give us a firm conviction of the truth of the doctrines ; but probability of a very much lower order, indeed, in others. I'or our purpose to-day, however, let us assume the theories or hypotheses to be absolutely demonstrated, and let us consider the dt'ductions from them that have caused, and not unreasonably caused, such commotion within the last couple of years. Deductions, however, is hardly the right word ; they are little more than opiniofia or beliefs, for that is really all the weight that is claimed for them. And just here lies one of the gravest and most com- mon mistakes. It is in supposing that Dr. Tyndall asserts that he has pnutf for these ()[)inions or ))eliefs of his, if anything so negative as some of the views he holds can be called a l)elicf. Another great and common error is in supposing that Dr. Tyndall's opinions are more antagonistic to the ])asis of religion tLan they really are. Atheists will find very cold comfort indeed 12 in his utterances. Ho asks himself the question in one placed when taking- a survey of the universe — "Can it be possible that man's knowledge is the greatest know- Jedge — that man's life is the highest life ? " and answers in the negative. He speaks, moreover, in his celebrated Address, of the manifestation in nature "of a Power absolutely inscrutal)l<' to the intellect of man."t In his latest paper,|: referring to the power which he claims for matter, he says : " How it came to have this power is a question on which I have never ventured an opin- ion." — " Theories of J']volution go but a short way to explain this mystery." — He admits besides, nay, he asserts in the strongest terms, the essential distinction between Mind and Matter, the impassable gulf which prevents us from seeing the connection between them. But having said thus much, in doing him the Justice which he claims, and fairly claims, as his right ; and having accepted all that he will concede to us, and they are A'ery important concessions, it must be stated that, notwithstanding all this, his opinions or beliefs (remem- ber they are no more than this) are thoroughly subver- sive of true religion, and must be opposed with all the vigour and all the vigilance of which our minds are capable. Be careful, too, never to forget that in maintaining these views of his, he has left behind him all that inlluence which he possesses in the region of Physical Science. He is like a potentate who has come into a foreign country, whose inhabitants may, indeed, receive him with courtesy, but will aliogether deny any claim of his to authority. « Lecture on Crystals and Molccnlai Force. f " Thi' Power which the Tniverse manifests to us is utterly inscrutable.'" -H. Spencer, i-'irst Principles, p. 4G. I Fortnightly Review, 18 It is of the utmost importance to keep this caution constantly before the mind. It is to the neglect of it, or to the want of knowledge of the border line between the two regions in which he travels that a great part of ihe general anxiety and commotion has heen due. I will quote his own words here on this point : " When the human mind has achieved greatness, and given evidence of extraordinary power in any domain, there is a tendency to credit it with similar power in all other domains." Let us accept the caution implied here. He cannot, on any strong grounds of evidence, object, if men should apply to himself, the statement that he, mistakenly — if we believe Sir David Brewster"^ — makes concerning Newton, and should say, " that the very devotion of his powers, through all the best years of his life to a totally different class of ideas, not to speak of any natural disqualilication, tend to render him less instead of more competent to deal with theological and historic questions." With this to guide us, we see at once whence, possibly arises the difficulty which he expresses in his latest utterance : " Wh(ui I attempt to give the Power which I see manifested in the universe an objective form, personal or otherwise, it slips away from me, declining all intellecliial mnnipnlalion'' " Its mystery overshadows me, but it remains a mystery." He cannot grasp all that is involved in the thought of a Personal and Intelligent Creator and lluler of the Universe ; he cannot comprehend it — for the simple reason that he demands more than is given to man to comprehend. He sets a high value upon what is expressed by the German term, " Vorstellunusiahigkeit," which he deiines to be "the power of deiinite mental presentation." He has been during all his scientilic life accustomed to deal See Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton, Vol ii, p. 313-315. 14 withdefinite pictures of material bodies, of material atoms, floating and dancing before the mental eye. Hence when he comes to deal with the immaterial, he finds it, as he himself says with regard to mind, " an impene- trable mystery." It cannot be pictured as he pictures atoms. If we followed his example, we should do as Locke says, speaking of m(Mi of not unlike principles a couple of centuries ago : " We should sit still, and not set our thoughts at work at all, in despair of knowing anything, because* some things are not to be under- stood." Newton, who lived at the same time as Locke, found it as impossible as Dr. Tyndall iiiulsit, to compre- hend the Omniscient ; yet h(* did not, on that account, turn his mind away from Crod. "As a blind man," he says, " has no idea of colours, so we have no idea of the modes in which Crod, Most Wise, perceives and under- stands all things."! Now, this is neither the time nor tht' place to take up the examination in detail of the opinions of Dr. Tyndall, or of those of the same school. I shall simply remind, or point out to, you that there is a principle in our nature, a principle irresistible in its authority, a principle which is equally strong in the j^easant and in the philosopher, which compels us to rise from the con- templation of mere movements of matter to the contem- plation of a Personal and Intelligent Creator. When you see a movement you cannot help asking what is the t"Ut caocus non liahet ideam colorum, sic nos idetim non habemns modorum, (luibus Dcus sapientissimus sentit i-t intclligit omnia. — Ideas habemus attributoium ejus, sed (juid sit rei alifinjus substantia mininie cognoscismus. Videmiis tantum corporum Hgnras et colorus, aiidimns tantum sonor, tangimus tantiim snperficies oxtornas, olfacimus odores solos, ct gustainus sapores : intimas substantias nuUo sensu, nulla actione rcflexa cognoscinius ; et multo minus ideam habemus substantiae Dei. Hnnc cognoscimos solummodo per proprictatos ot attribiita et per sapien- tissimas et optimas rerum structuras et causas finales." — Newton, Prin- cipia, Seholium generale. 16 • ' cause of it. You say, and you necessarily reply, it is force — but the instant you say that, you have passed from the boundaries of mere matter. We derive our very idea of force as acting on matter from the power of our own mind over our body.=^ We know^ that it is our ivill that sets our various members in motion — how — we know not. The connection we cannot explain. But that it exists wo are certain. Hence when we see motion in the external world, and speak of force, w^e are necessarily led in thought at last to a Will operat- ing, and thence to an Intellect, and "to all those attri- butes of mind in which — and not in the possession of arms, legs, brains, and viscera — personality consists.!" But "we must not enter into metaphysical discussions here. Let us at once seek the opinions of men of the highest eminence in science, and see whether they find •This idea [of Cause]. .. .is not derived from experience, but has its origin in the mind itself. — By cause, we mean some quality, power, or efficacy by which a state of things produces a succeeding state. Thus the motion of bodies from rest is produced by a cause which we call Force. — Whewell, History of Scientific Ideas, Vol i, p. 173. Dr. Tyndall also seems to hold this opinion. In his Lecture on Crystals and Molecular Force, pp. 70, 71, he says: " In order to trace the genesis of the notions now entertained upon the subject (crystalization) we have to go a long way back. In the drawing of a bow, tlie darting of a jave- lin, the throwing of a stone, in the lifting of burdens, and in personal com- bats, even savage man became acquainted with the operation of /orce." Then, " by a kind of poetic transfer, he applied to things external to him- self the conceptions derived from the exercise of his own muscular j)ower." For example : when he had observed that rubbed amber attracted light bodies, and that a magnet could attract or repel, he came to the conclu- sion that " the magnet and the rubbed amber exerted force." The origin being thus admitted, it ai)ptars of little moment what the "transfer" is called. Yet, Dr. Tyndall in speaking of the "Power"' which he sees " manifested in the Universe," " dares not call it a ' Mind.' " But Ave should notice that he does not at all deny that it may be. Here, however, he has left his own domain and got into metaphysical regions. t Sir John Herschel. 16 anything' inconsistont with tho knowledge of a personal and inti'lliL»'ont C^-eator and Ituler oi' the universo in the scientific idea of molecnl(\s or atoms to which 1 havf^ alhided. We shall find th(^ very contrary. Sir John Herschel says, '* we have the strongest evidence that these ' atoms ' may all be arranged in a very limited number of groups or classes, all the indi- viduals of each of which ar«\ to all intents and purposes, exactlij alike in all their properties. Now, when we see a great number of things precisely alik(% we do not believe this similarity to have originated (except from a common principle indejiendent of them ; and that we recogni/e this likeness, chielly by the identity of their deportment under similar circumstances, strengthens rather than weakens the conclusion. Aline of spinning- jennies [in a cotton mill], or a regiment of soldiers, dressed exactly alike, and going through ju'ecisely the same evolutions, gives us no idea ol' independent exist- ence ; w^e must se(^ them act out of concert before we can believe them to have independent walls and proper- ties, not impressed on them from without. And this conclusion, which w^ould l)e strong «^ven were there only two individuals precisely alike in all respects and for ever, acquires irresistable force when their number is multi[)lied beyond the power of imagination to con- ceive. If we mistakii not, then, the discoveries alluded to effectually destroy the idea of an eternal selfexistent matter ; by giving to each of its atoms the essential characters at once of a marnifactiired article and a subor- dinate a^enty^ This was written about forty years ago, and the same idea and the same striking expression, " manufac- tured articles," were repeated again in another work by * Preliminary Discourse on the Study of Niitiiral I'liilosophy. Chap. 3. 1*7 him a few years ago.=^ To appreciate the full force of his ar<:^umont and illustrations of spiiuiinii-jonnios and soldiers, you have only to think of tho«e beautiful effects of crystallization which you have seen, and to which Dr. Tyndall so often alludes. Listen now to what is said by one of the great living authorities on the subject of molecules — one of those who have specially distinguished themselves by inves- tigation concerning them — Prof Clerk Maxwell, of Cambridge. One passage that I shall give has often been quoted already, but it will bear, and it deserves, frequent repetition. The extracts are from a lecturef of his, wherein he describes the methods of the various investigations. He gives some of his conclusions as fol- lows : "In the heavens we discover by their light, and by their light alone, stars so distant from each other, that no material thing can ever have passed from one to another ; and yet this light, which is to us the sole evidence of the existence of these worlds, tells us also [by means of the spectroscope] that each of them is built up of molecules of the same kinds as those which we find on earth." " Each molecule throughout the uni- verse bears imjiressed on it the stamp of a metric system as distinctly as does the metre of the Archives of Paris, or the double royal cubit of the Temple of Karnac." " No theory of Evolution can be formed to account for the similarity of molecules." " None of the processes of nature, since th(? time when nature began, has produced the slightest difference in the properties of any molecule." " On the other hand, the exact equal- ity of each molecule to all others of the same kind gives it, as Sir John Herschel has well said, the essential character of a manufactured article, and precludes the * Familiar Lectures on Scientillc Subjects. t Read before the British Association at Bradford, September, 1873. 18 m IK! idea of its being eternal and self-existent." " Though in the course of ages catastrophes have occurred, and may yet occur in the heavens, though ancient systems may be dissolved and new systems evolved out of their ruins, the molecules out of which these systems are built — the foundation stones of the material universe — remain unbroken and unworn. They continue