The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1874-09-06
Prefesser Tyndall's Gratuitous Attack
ON ReligiOn.

| ON Religion
The astounding boldness of this eminen
physicist in his remarkable address as Presi
dent of the British Association at its meeting
In Belfast provokes, as it could not fail Il
do, unmeasured comment in all the organs o.
English opinion published at intervals short
enough for 80 prompt o discussion. The in
tellectual commotion it has caused cannot be
transient; it is certain to produce, within the
ensuing year or two, literature OF excited
controversy in which the acatest religious and
scientific intellects of the time on both sides
of the Atlantic will bear part Professor
Tyndau has thrown down gauntlet which
the defenders of religion cannot decline to
take up. The reciprocation OF argument be-
tween two great schools of thought will be
impetuous and vehement but we hope not
acrimonious. If the controversy which Pro-
lessor Tyndall has precipiated could be kept
within the higher intellectual circles in which
it is started it could do no harm, and might
result in settling more distinct boundaries
than have hitherto existed between the prov
ince of science and that of theology. But, un-
fortunately, it cannot be SO confined.
The subject is one in which, on one side OF it
at least, trained and unframed minds feel an
equal interest; it touches the profoundest and
most cherished sentiments of the human
heart; mulhtudes will discuss it with deep
passion and inadequate intelligence; the
effect on the general mind will be to disturb
but not enlighten.
&c 90 ID h,a svVov> rvctx
intrepid temper why Professor Tyndall should
have flung this frebrand among the combus-
uble elements which it is sure to kindle. We
do not see what good man of genius and sci
ence can do to himself or to anybody by
standing forth as the champion and apostle of
atheistic materialism. The excuse he offers is
not valid. 81 have touched" he says, ''on
debatable questions and led you over danger
GUS ground, and this partly with a view of
telling you, and through you the world, that
as regards these questions science claimed an
unrestricted right of search. 1t is not to the
point to say that the views Of Lucretius and
Bruno, of Darwin and Spencer, may be
wrong. I concede the possibility, deeming
it indeed certain that these views will undergo
modification. But the point is, that whether
right or wrong, we claim the freedom to dis
cuss them" This is rather pretext than rea-
sonable apology. There is no such formidable
opposition in this age to the freest scientific
investigation and discussion as to call for any
such defiant and polemic assertion of the
right. Science had her martyrs in days less
enlightened, but that time has gone by. No
English philosopher has anything worse to fear
than public criticism as the consequence of
propagating any kind of opinions. Professor
Tyndall asserts q right that nobody denies
with an air of challenge which would have
been heroic in poor Calico, in the Italy of
the sixteenth century, but borders on the
ridiculous in the England Of the nineteenth.
brave attitude is cheap and liable to be
laughed at as histrionic, in the manifest alb
sence of any danger. The victorious con-
tests of science, first on the disputed ground
of astronomy, and more recently on that of
geology, have given it 30 strong presump-
tive right to be heard that its votaries can
safely announce the most novel and startling
opinions. They must, of course, expect to
be assailed with the weapons of criticism and
controversy, for this is but an exercise on the
part of others of the same right which they
claim for themselves. They have no title to q
monopoly of the privilege of bold, free
discussion. The rights of argumentative
attack and defence are equal and mu-
tual between themselves and those who dis
agree with them. When Professor Tyndall
shocked the religious world two years ago by
publishing his whimsical proposition of o
ssprayer gauge" he was assailed by nothing
more injurious than legitimate public criti-
cism, sottened, in most cases, by full recog-
milton of his scientific eminence. Having
made o great sensation then he seems willing
qualification of being the theme of so many
tongues and pens is perhaps more prevailing
motive with him than the affected and Chi
merical fear that the right of scientific discus
sion is in such peril as to require defensive
manifesto
The objection to his open avowal of mate
realistic atheism may be made with as much
force from the scientific as from the religious
side. He exposes himself to the same kind of
criticism that would be employed against an
orator intrusted with the advocacy of an i'm
portant cause who should shut the minds of
his audience by needessly crossing their
habitual tone of sentiment Why should
science waste its strength in rowing against
the stream? The wisest course for its votaries
is to conine themselves to their own proper
fields of investigation with well founded
confidence that no scientific truth established
by adequate evidence can ever be shaken, and
that the more silently and unobtrusively it
gains admission to the popular mind the more
certain it is to hasten the modification of every
theological belief that is really inconsistent
with it. Eror-and especially religious