At the request of my Publishers, strengthened by the expressed desire
of many Correspondents, I reprint, with a few slight alterations,
this Address.
It was written under some disadvantages this year in the Alps, and
sent by instalments to the printer. When read subsequently it proved
too long for its purpose, and several of its passages were
accordingly struck out. Some of them are here restored.
It has provoked an unexpected amount of criticism. This, in due
time, will subside; and I confidently look forward to a calmer future
for a verdict, founded not on imaginary sins, but on the real facts
of the case.
Of the numberless strictures and accusations, some of them exceeding
fierce, of which I have been, and continue to be, the object, I
refrain from speaking at any length. To one or two of them, however,
out of respect for their sources, I would ask permission briefly to
refer.
An evening paper of the first rank, after the ascription of various
more or less questionable aims and motives, proceeds to the
imputation, that I permitted the cheers of my audience to 'stimulate'
me to the utterance of words which no right-minded man, without a
sense of the gravest responsibility, could employ. I trust the
author of this charge will allow me in all courtesy to assure him
that the words ascribed by him to the spur of the moment were written
in Switzerland; that they stood in the printed copy of the Address
from which I read; that they evoked no 'cheers,' but a silence far
more impressive than cheers; and that, finally, as regards both
approbation and the reverse, my course had been thought over and
decided long before I ventured to address a Belfast audience.
A writer in a most able theological journal represents me as 'patting
religion on the back.' The thought of doing so is certainly his, not
mine. The facts of religious feeling are to me as certain as the
facts of physics. But the world, I hold, will have to distinguish
between the feeling and its forms, and to vary the latter in
accordance with the intellectual condition of the age.
I am unwilling to dwell upon statements ascribed to eminent men,
which may be imperfectly reported in the newspapers, and I therefore
pass over a recent sermon attributed to the Bishop of Manchester with
the remark, that one engaged so much as he is in busy and, I doubt
not on the whole, beneficent outward life, is not likely to be among
the earliest to discern the more inward and spiritual signs of the
times, or to prepare for the condition which they foreshadow.
In a recent speech at Dewsbury, the Dean of Manchester is reported to
have expressed himself thus:--'The Professor (myself) ended a most
remarkable and eloquent speech by terming himself a material
Atheist.' My attention was drawn to Dean Cowie's statement by a
correspondent, who described it as standing 'conspicuous among the
strange calumnies' with which my words have been assailed. For
myself I use no language which could imply that I am hurt by such
attacks. They have lost their power to wound or injure. So likewise
as regards a resolution recently passed by the Presbytery of Belfast,
in which Professor Huxley and myself are spoken of as 'ignoring the
existence of God, and advocating pure and simple materialism;' had
the possessive pronoun 'our' preceded 'God,' and had the words 'what
we consider' preceded 'pure,' this statement would have been
objectively true; but to make it so this qualification is required.
Cardinal Cullen, I am told, is also actively engaged in erecting
spiritual barriers against the intrusion of 'Infidelity' into
Ireland. His Eminence, I believe, has reason to suspect that the
Catholic youth around him are not proof to the seductions of science.
Strong as he is, I believe him to be impotent here. The youth of
Ireland will imbibe science, however slowly; they will be leavened by
it, however gradually. And to its inward modifying power among
Catholics themselves, rather than to any Protestant propagandism, or
other external influence, I look for the abatement of various
incongruities; among them, of those mediæval proceedings which, to
the scandal and amazement of our nineteenth century intelligence,
have been revived among us during the last two years.
In connexion with the charge of Atheism, I would make one remark.
Christian men are proved by their writings to have their hours of
weakness and of doubt, as well as their hours of strength and of
conviction; and men like myself share, in their own way, these
variations of mood and tense. Were the religious views of many of my
assailants the only alternative ones, I do not know how strong the
claims of the doctrine of 'Material Atheism' upon my allegiance might
be. Probably they would be very strong. But, as it is, I have
noticed during years of self-observation that it is not in hours of
clearness and vigour that this doctrine commends itself to my mind;
that in the presence of stronger and healthier thought it ever
dissolves and disappears, as offering no solution of the mystery in
which we dwell, and of which we form a part.
To coarser attacks and denunciations I pay no attention; nor have I
any real reason to complain of revilings addressed to me, which
professing Christians, as could readily be proved, do not scruple to
use towards each other. The more agreeable task remains to me of
thanking those who have tried, however hopelessly, to keep accusation
within the bounds of justice, and who, privately, and at some risk in
public, have honoured me with the expression of their sympathy and
approval.