DR. TYNDALL'S INAUGURAL ADDRESS*

(FROM THE AUSTRALASIAN.)

When it became known that Dr. Tyndall was to deliver the presidential address at the meeting of the British Association at Belfast this year, a great intellectual treat was generally anticipated. Dr. Tyndall possesses in a high degree all of the qualities needed to make such an address at once generally interesting and attractive, and philosophically valuable. Deeply versed in the later developments of science in all of its various branches, imbued with the vitality of feeling and glow of imagination needed to kindle the facts and principles of science into life, and eminently qualified to present these results in a popular form, and to clothe them with lucid and impressive language, Dr. Tyndall was certain to give an interesting and masterly view of the state of science at the present day. But he was also likely to do more than this. Dr. Tyndall has before now shown himself ready to afford significant proof of his opinions as to the relations of modern science to modern theology. On this subject he has displayed an aggressive, combative spirit which differs very widely from the humbly defensive attitude in which men of science at no more distant date than the last generation were compelled to present their results for acceptance. It was certain that if he touched upon this subject it would be in no faltering manner. The result has fully borne out these expectations, and in the splendid address before us, Dr. Tyndall has not only given us a brilliant generalisation of the scientific theories which have occasioned most controversy during recent years, but he has also issued a manifesto which, if nothing else, will serve to mark the changed position of science in relation to other modes of human thought as compared with its position a generation or two ago.

At the outset of his discourse, Dr. Tyndall sketches the early and rudimentary effort of primæval man to explain the natural phenomena by which he was surrounded. The explanations first adopted were all anthropomorphic in their character. All the changes and operations of nature were assumed to be caused by some superhuman beings, who were still marked with all of the qualities and imperfections of humanity. The more penetrating intellects, however, were not contented with these explanations,and as they began to construct a science of nature, there grew up in their minds a desire and determination "to sweep from the field of theory this mob of gods and demons, and to place natural phenomena on a basis more congruent with themselves." Hence the attempts of the early Greek philosophers, amongst which the atomic philosophy of Democritus receives special attention from Dr. Tyndall. The same line of thought was pursued and developed by Epicurus, and still further, a century and a half later, by the Roman Lucretius, who, by "his grand conception of the atoms falling silently through immeasurable ranges of space and time, suggested the nebular hypothesis to Kant its first propounder." In the words of Lucretius, "If you will apprehend and keep in mind these things, Nature, free at once, and rid of her haughty lords, is seen to do all things spontaneously of herself without the meddling of the gods." Next we have a view of the labours of the Alexandrian physicists and mathematicians, in whose hands " scientific method was rendered in a great measure complete by the union of induction and experiment."

" What then," asks Dr. Tyndall, "stopped its victorious advance ? Why was the scientific intellect compelled, like an exhausted soil, to lie fallow for nearly two millenniums before it could regather the elements necessary to its fertility and strength?" The answer is not very explicitly stated, but it is to the effect that the sway of Christianity in the middle ages nurtured the theological spirit and mode of thought to such a predominance that natural science was crippled and smothered. "The Scriptures that ministered to the spiritual needs of the early Christians were also the measure of their science." The middle ages were "a time when thought had become abject, and when the acceptance of mere authority led, as it always does in science to intellectual death." Towards the close of this stationary period, however, "a word-weariness, if I may so express it, took more and more possession of men's minds." Men turned from their barren disputes again to nature and in Copernicus, Giordano Bruno (who was burned by the Inquisition), and Galileo we have the proofs of the re-awakening of scientific intellect. Dr. Tyndall proceeds to trace the atomic philosophy through Gassendi, Bacon, Descartes, Hobbes, Locke, Newton, Boyle and their successors, to the shape it has assumed in the present day.

In illustrating the change that has taken place in the ideas prevalent regarding the chronology of the Old Testament since the days of Bishop Butler, Dr. Tyndall says :—

" It is hardly necessary to inform you that since his time the domain of the naturalist has been immensely extended—the whole science of geology, with its astounding revelations regarding the life of the ancient earth, having been created. The rigidity of old conceptions has been relaxed, the public mind being rendered gradually tolerant of the idea that not for six thousand, nor for sixty thousand nor for six thousand thousand, but for æons embracing untold millions of years this earth has been the theatre of life and death. . . .

Everybody now knows this; all men admit it; still, when they were first broached, these verities of science found loud-tongued denunciators, who proclaimed not only their baselessness considered scientifically, but their immorality considered as questions of ethics and religion: the Book of Genesis had stated the question in a different fashion ; and science must necessarily go to pieces when it clashed with this authority. And as the seed of the thistle produces a thistle, and nothing else, so these objectors scatter their germs abroad, and reproduce their kind, ready to play again the part of their intellectual progenitors, to show the same virulence, the same ignorance, to achieve for a time the same success, and finally to suffer the same inexorable defeat. Sure the time must come at last when human nature in its entirety, whose legitimate demands it is admitted science alone cannot satisfy, will find interpreters and expositors of a different stamp from those rash and ill-informed persons who have been hitherto so ready to hurl themselves against every new scientific revelation, lest it should endanger what they are pleased to consider theirs."

One of the most interesting parts of the address is that devoted to the consideration of the doctrine of development as it has taken shape in the hands of Mr. Darwin and Mr. Herbert Spencer. Of the former he says :—

"His largeness of knowledge and readiness of resource render Mr. Darwin the most terrible of antagonists. Accomplished naturalists have levelled heavy and sustained criticisms against him—not always with the view of fairly weighing his theory, but with the express intention of exposing its weak points only. This does not irritate him. He treats every objection with a soberness and thoroughness which even Bishop Butler might be proud to imitate, surrounding each fact with its appropriate detail, placing it in its proper relations, and usually giving it a significance which, as long as it was kept isolated, failed to appear. This is done without a trace of ill-temper. He moves over the subject with the passionless strength of a glacier, and the grinding of the rocks is not always without a counterpart in the logical pulverisation of the objector. But though in handling this mighty theme all passion has been stilled, there is an emotion of the intellect incident to the discernment of new truth which often colours and warms the pages of Mr. Darwin. His success has been great, and this implies not only the solidity of his work, but the preparedness of the public mind for such a revelation."

But Mr. Darwin has not clearly stated his views on the origination of life. He developes its varied aspects from one "primordial form," but he does not explain how he supposes that form to have been introduced. Says our author:—

" We need clearness and thoroughness here. Two courses, and two only, are possible. Either let us open our doors freely to the conception of creative acts, or, abandoning them, let us radically change our notions of matter. If we look at matter as pictured by Democritus, and as defined for generations in our scientific text-books, the absolute impossibility of any form of life coming out of it would be sufficient to render any other hypothesis preferable; but the definitions of matter given in our text-books were intended to cover its purely physical and mechanical properties. And taught as we have been to regard these definitions as complete, we naturally and rightly reject the monstrous notion that out of such matter any form of life could possibly arise. But are the definitions complete? Everything depends on the answer to be given to this question. Trace the line of life backwards, and see it approaching more and more to what we call the purely physical condition. We reach at length those organisms which I have compared to drops of oil suspended in a mixture of alcohol and water. We reach the protogenes of Haeckel, in which we have a type distinguishable from a fragment of albumen only by its finely granular character. Can we pause here? We break a magnet and find two poles in each of its fragments. We continue the process of breaking, but however small the parts, each carries with it, though enfeebled, the polarity of the whole. And when we can break no longer, we prolong the intellectual vision to the polar molecules. Are we not urged to do something similar in the case of life ? Is there not a temptation to close to some extent with Lucretius, when he affirms that 'Nature is seen to do all things spontaneously of herself without the meddling of the gods?' or with Bruno, when he declares that matter is not 'that mere empty capacity which philosophers have pictured her to be, but the universal mother who brings forth all things as the fruit of her own womb?' The questions here raised are inevitable. They are approaching us with accelerated speed, and it is not a matter of indifference whether they are introduced with reverence or irreverence. Abandoning all disguise, the confession that I feel bound to make before you is that I prolong the vision backward across the boundary of the experimental evidence, and discern in that matter, which we in our ignorance, and notwithstanding our professed reverence for its Creator, have hitherto covered with opprobrium, the promise and potency of every form and quality of life."

Further on we find him affirming :—

" The impregnable position of science may be described in a few words. All religious theories, schemes, and systems, which embrace notions of cosmogony, or which otherwise reach into its domain, must, in so far as they do this, submit to the control of science, and relinquish all thought of controlling it. Acting otherwise proved disastrous in the past, and it is simply fatuous to-day. Every system which would escape the fate of an organism too rigid to adjust itself to its environment must be plastic to the extent that the growth of knowledge demands. When this truth has been thoroughly taken in, rigidity will be relaxed, exclusiveness diminished, things now deemed essential will be dropped, and elements now rejected will be assimilated. The lifting of the life is the essential point; and as long as dogmatism, fanaticism, and intolerance are kept out, various modes of leverage may be employed to raise life to a higher level."

The address ends with the following eloquent passage :—

"And now the end is come. With more time, or greater strength and knowledge, what has been here said might have been better said, while worthy matters here omitted might have received fit expression. But there would have been no material deviation from the views set forth. As regards myself, they are not the growth of a day; and as regards you, I thought you ought to know the environment which, with or without your consent, is rapidly surrounding you, and in relation to which some adjustment on your part may be necessary. A hint of Hamlet's, however, teaches us all how the troubles of common life may be ended; and it is perfectly possible for you and me to purchase intellectual peace at the price of intellectual death. The world is not without refuges of this description ; nor is it wanting in persons who seek their shelter and try to persuade others to do the same. I would exhort you to refuse such shelter, and to scorn such base repose—to accept, if the choice be forced upon you, commotion before stagnation, the leap of the torrent before the stillness of the swamp. In the one there is at all events life, and, therefore, hope ; in the other, none. I have touched on debatable questions, and led you over dangerous ground—and this partly with the view of telling you, and through you the world, that as regards these questions science claims unrestricted right of search. It is not to the point to say that the views of Lucretius and Bruno, of Darwin and Spencer, may be wrong. Here I should agree with you, deeming it, indeed, certain that these views will undergo modification. But the point is, that, whether right or wrong, we claim the freedom to discuss them. The ground which they cover is scientific ground; and the right claimed is one made good through tribulation and anguish, inflicted and endured in darker times than ours, but resulting in the immortal victories which science has won for the human race. I would set forth equally the inexorable advance of man's understanding in the path of knowledge, and the unquenchable claims of his emotional nature which the understanding can never satisfy. The world embraces not only a Newton but a Shakespeare—not only a Boyle, but a Raphael—not only a Kant, but a Beethoven not only a Darwin, but a Carlyle. Not in each of these, but in all, is human nature whole. They are not opposed—but supplementary—not mutually exclusive but reconcilable. And if, still unsatisfied, the human mind, with the yearning of a pilgrim for his distant home, will turn to the mystery from which it has emerged, seeking so to fashion it as to give unity to thought and faith, so long as this is done, not only without intolerance or bigotry of any kind, but with the enlightened recognition that ultimate fixity of conception is here unattainable, and that each succeeding age must be held free to fashion the mystery in accordance with its own needs—then, in opposition to all the restrictions of Materialism, I would affirm this to be a field for the noblest exercise of what, in contrast with the knowing faculties, may be called the creative faculties of man. Here, however, I must quit a theme too great for me to handle, but which will be handled by the loftiest minds ages after you and I, like streaks of morning cloud, shall have melted into the infinite azure of the past."

A discourse of this kind evidently exposes many sides to criticism. It is obvious that in "prolonging" the discussion "across the boundary of the experimental evidence," Dr. Tyndall has got into what he would regard as the enemy's country, and that the argument is then one rather for theologians than for men of science. The question of the relations of science to theology is rather interesting in a theological than in a scientific point of view. It might be proper for discussion in a conference of the clergy, but is hardly calculated to prove of much interest to an association of savans. All that concerns them is to see that their science is sound and true. So long as it is that, they are very little concerned to know with what systems it may come into collision. But their position is weakened when they quit this sure ground within the "boundary of the experimental evidence," and engage in discussions with their antagonists as to the limits of their respective domains. It is further to be considered whether Dr. Tyndall, by anticipating the result of the evidence, and stating his materialistic conclusion separated from the body of scientific knowledge by which he reaches it, is not preparing a school of followers whom he would be the first to disown, and whether in his war against superstition he is not in danger of establishing one superstition the more. There can be no gain to science from the statement in a popular address of views which avowedly go far beyond the evidence, and which refer to points about which there is already much difference of opinion amongst scientific men themselves, and a great deal of profitless discussion of an unscientific and often anti-scientific nature. Doubtless there is something to be said on the other side. It is quite natural that men of the somewhat belligerent spirit of Professors Tyndall and Huxley should grow impatient of the irritating attacks made upon their teachings, not because they are unscientific, but because they do not harmonise with what the assailants, in Dr. Tyndall's words, "are pleased to regard as their revelations." It is hardly to be wondered at that with such provocation they should at times be tempted to carry the war into the territory of their adversaries, to state their systems in the most extreme shapes they promise to assume, and to bring them forward almost as a challenge and gage of battle. And whatever may be thought or the prudence of such a course, and its accordance with the true spirit of science, few will in this case regret it, since it has, to some extent, been to this feeling that we owe the very able address we have been considering.

* Inaugural Address, delivered at the Forty fourth Annual Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. By professor John Tyndall Melbourne: George Robertson. 1874

 The Argus 7 November 1874,