Knoxville journal. [volume] (Knoxville, Iowa) 1874-1986, 1874-10-08

possibility of doubt which leads the re-
ligious man or the Christian through
alternate peace and painful distrust is
present also with the so-callel atheist
and must bring him many moment
when his heart feels the presence OF God.
The word atheism, therefore, as applied
to this man or that indicates only the
most prominent and most constant state
of the mind, and does not imply that any
human heart has ever been able wholly
to Danish the idea of the Infinite One, for
as the fact that Christian evidence is not
mathematical entails upon the Christian
some hours of darkness, so the parallel
fact that atheism is not demonstrable ex-
poses the avowed materialist to the in
roads of beautiful times and seasons in
which the atheism becomes weak indeed,
and the religious sentiment bursts forth
into song. The few atheists with whom
il has been my lot to converse have con-
fessed that at long intervals, perhaps
once a wear, in some sudden manner,
from causes perhaps unknown, the con-
yiction that there is God has come, and
for an instant filed the whole heart with
a strange delight. As mo one can be
wise at all hours" SO no one, at all hours,
can rest in the same faith or doubt.
But dismissing the essential quality of
atheism, its sincerity and occasional dis
trust, we may inquire whether the ma
terialism of Mr.. Tyndall necessarily ex-
cludes belief in a spirit-world, and even
in God. 1t may we'll be doubted
whether his theory has, in any way,
touched the question of soul in any of its
forms, human, angelic or divine. The
question how souls come is very dis
tinct from the question whittier they
have come, and where they will go. 1t
is only the former of these ideas which
is approached by the recent address OF
the English scholar. He discerns in mat
ter the promise and potency of every form
of life" This assertion does not, there
fore, affect the quality of life, conscious
life, hitherto supposed to exist in the
universe, but simply tells us that instead
of having come from nothing or wish,
de milo, it has rolled up out of material
base. What Mr.. Tyndall himself infers
from his theory is not a matter of i'm
pOrtance; the important inquiry being
what conclusion does his theory necessi-
tate, even if it were true to the most ex.
treme degree. 1t seems evident that If
true his hypothesis does not touch the
fact or quality Of any spirit life, but
touches only the origin of that life and
leaves us a supreme spirit also, but with
wonderful boldness assigns to this SUI
preme spirit an origin. Life is here up
on earth as act. 1t is a wonderful
phenomenon. How it has swarmed over
this footstool for thousands of years, and
through what forms of grandeur it has
passed under the name of man! Look
back upon its path of glory, the glowing
wake of its great ship of poetry, elo-
quence, architecture, music, language,
friendship, love and beauty. If you will
listen to the lips of Moses as he unfolded
the early principles of justice, and to the
Roman lawgivers when they also deliv-
cred their law; if you will behold the
eloquent works man has wrought from
the "knobs and flowers" of Solomon's
temple to the decorations of Athens
and the embalmed Pompeii; if you
will recall the poetry from David
and Homer to Dante; if you
will seem to hear again all the
eloquence from Pericles to Bossuet, or If
with tenderer heart you will think of all
the high love and beauty that have
marched along in grand proce ssion from
Ruth and Antigone to Zenobia and Beat
rice, you will confess that the life of
man is fact that overwhelms by its
magnitude and bewilders by its beauty.
And in such survey of man we have
left out thousand wonders-the joys and
sports of his children, the marriage altar
wreathed with flowers, the altar of wor-
ship, vocal with song and prayers, the
home with vines above its windows and
roses by it's path, and the tomb wet with
tears--and have from the poverty of both
Ia hnn lad 10,
rest in the conclusion that human life is
indeed a wonder immense and thrilling.
Now, matter, according to Mr.. Tyndall,
possesses the potency to produce such
form and quality of life Let it be 50.
But this dead matter which has such
promise and potency is not confined to
our little star. In the vast heavens our
globe floats as only one particle of dust
in measureless sunbeam, and hence if
in our little star the promise and
potency" of matter are SO effective it
must be that other realms may possess
higher than this wonderful existence
which we behold, and hence, as Mr.. Tyn-
dall's theory creates man, so it peoples all
space and explains a heaven of angels
at the same instant that ii explains
WOElu VI lhb ouS,co-
sion of material causes that gives us
man gives us other rational beings, and
hence between the materialism of Tyn-
dali and the spiritualism of Robert Dale
Owen, or of the Bible, there is no logical
difference, Mr.. Owen simply saying
Here the spirits are" and Mr.. Tyndall
simply telling him whence they come"
According to the recent address matter
has every promise and potency, and
hence there Is no limit 10 be assigned TO
the dignity and power of the soul that
may have come up from the depths of
the past eternity, and hence ample room
is made for any seraphim that any mind
may dream of as iDhabiting the silent
depths of space. Hence, instead of APP
preaching the question whether there be
some one governing spirit with some cen
trail home, the philosophy of Mr.. Tyn-
dali must content itself with telling us
how that chief intelligence was made,
for by his own admission his system has
no reference to the quality of fact but
only to the origin of a fact Instead of
requesting us to give up the fact of angel
or Deity the great student asks US to
learn how the angel or Deity came.
Give us the fact of life human, angelic,