Daily globe., 1879-04-05
GOV. DATIS' LECTURE.

The Certain Tendencies Of Modern
Thought"-An Eloquent Production.
A large and cultivated audience assembled
at the Central Presbyterian church last even
ing to hear the mastery effort of Ex-Gov. G.
K. Davis, who lectured on the pregnant
theme of Certain Tendencies of Modern
Thought" which was handled in the capti-
vating manner usual with this brilliant
speaker. The conventional term leo
ture, as applied to the subject mat
ter of the speakers thoughts, is only
partially significant, as the effort was more
closely allied to the finished and scholarly
production of the essayist. The elegant
diction and full, rounded periods were
charaoteristicro this most fascinating style
of oratorical defamation.
The essay was logically constructed, fault
lessly delivered, and abounded in specimens
of the most chaste, unique and appropriately
ornate figures of speech, while many of the
illusions were remarkable for novel origi
n nality, and, even with this, showed evidences
Of thorough research.
The speaker said, in commencing, that
modern thought was not only exceedingly
active, but that il was proportionally self
sufficient. It pretended to be eminently
constructive, and every worker in its guild,
from the architect who plans to the journey
man who carries intellectual mortar in his
hod, is in competition for contract to be let
by his present age, to take down and then
rebuild the whole structure of thought. Its
skeptical progenitor of one hundred years
ago fulfilled its destiny by the publication
of thousands of volumes of simple denials.
1t believed in nothing and succeeded in pull
ing down everything. After describing the
destructive tendencies of many systems of
modern thought, the speaker said that by
newly discovered evidence Cataline was made
to appear the John Brown of antiquity, con-
spring for the rights of common and down.
trodden men; Henry the Eighth, the adulter-
GUS wife murderer, q veritable merry Andrew
in sanity disguise; Elizabeth, queen at once
Of England and virago, is simulated by
the men-miliners of history as the
Leicester or Essex would have scorned to
feed her vanity with. Mary, Queen OF
Scots, is represented either as the French
lily, all white and pure and fragrant, or as
the Scottish thistle, spinous, unsightly and
cruel to the touch-both of which this beau.
tiful hybrid doubtless was to the same de-
gree. Robespierre is better, known by some
of these clairvoyants of history than he was
to the generation in which he murdered. Tc
them he is not the presiding devil of the he'll
which he helped to create, but is the sanity
precursor of pure political dispensation
| A critical and brilliant analysis of the pro-
ductions of Strauss and Renan was here
| given, in juxtaposition to which was placed
the startling, historical paradox of Judas
| Iscariot, whose several conceptions anC
treatment Of the great Master, as seer
through the lens of ancient and medern his
torians, was powerfully delineated. The dis
coveries of Newton and Kepler were advertet
to, and the new impetus given to moderl
thought by these great philosophers was for
chilly portrayed.
The science of jurisprudence, chemistry
metaphysics, electricity, heat and force, tn
speculations and discoveries of La Place, to
gether with their far-reaching consequences
the oul-searching scalpel as it sought for th
hidden springs of thought, were alluded
at length, and the respective subjects CAV
evidence of the profoundest analytical II
search.
The compendius wisdom of Burke, the II
fractive speculation of Fox and McIntosl
} the brilliant ineffective corruscation
: Dideru, together with their social, polite:
and scientific PHILOSOPHERS, were alluded
in tho most ornate and fgurative languag
while the peculiar mechanism of their tene
was analyzed with the most exquisite fdelit
to the lives of these illustrious and histories
: characters. The abstract theories of Hubble
Plato, Spencer and the eccentric opinion
cinetured within their orbits of though
were also minutely criticized.
|, The polemic though Numerically oppose
disquisitions of Bronson and Fetche we
e next spoken of, and the peculiarities
> these great thinkers were most beautiful
}. illustrated. The lecturer spoke of the d
t struotive and pernicious theories of Il
nihilists, closing with an eloquent predi
ton as to the probable beneficial outcome
the war of sects and opinions.