“It is quite as well that we should be accustomed to the logical consequences of some of our philosophies. The tradition of Christianity is so strong upon the most ‘advanced’ of our wise men that it holds them back from the carrying-out of their principles. But here and there is one, and we should all be thankful to him who is so intellectually constituted that he must carry ‘a law’ to its issue, and by the issue let us see the nature of the law. The hint of what may be is given in the revival of the advocacy of suicide for the wretched, and the putting to death of the helpless. Naturalism carried out comes to that conclusion. Mr. Herbert Spencer had been patiently laying down principles which scores who think they think are accepting, without the slightest idea, on his part apparently or on theirs, that they are simple savagery and pure Paganism, and that the man who dines off his aged mother has been acting on them, though Mr. Spencer’s name had never been heard in his native speech.
“In some sense of the supernatural, in some faith in the unseen, in some feeling that man is not of this world, in some grasp on the Eternal God, and on an eternal, supernatural, and supersensuous life, lies the basis of all pity and mercy, all help and comfort and patience and sympathy among men. Set these aside, commit us only to the natural, to what our eyes see and our hands handle; and while we may organize society scientifically, and live according to ‘the laws of nature,’ and be very philosophical and very liberal, we are standing on the ground on which every pack of wolves gallops.
“One may safely say, ‘If you will show me, on any principle of naturalism, or any rule of what you shallowly in these days call ‘philosophy,’ on any law of nature, why I should not strangle my deaf and dumb child, smother my paralytic father, or drown my hopelessly insane wife, then I will turn materialist also.’ We are far from believing that these gentlemen know how they have been undermining the foundations of civilized and social life. A lurid glare cast across these speculations, like this English discussion of Euthanasia, may startle some whom Mr. Tyndall’s discussion of the scientific absurdity of prayer might not startle, though both are locked in one, and stand or fall together. But however it be, we are sure that man will find that society stands on supernatural ground, that the Family and the Nation are divine, and that ‘Naturalism,’ modified or disguised as it may be, is only isolated savagery—‘every man for himself, and the weakest to the wall.’”
[7] A writer in the “Church Journal” of New York puts the case well and fairly as follows:—“The scientific people have taken up the lost weapons of bigoted theological polemics, and assail with the rough sides of their tongues and pens any man who calls for further evidence, or presumes to bring their assumptions to the test of examination. But having no more reverence for the unsustained dicta of Sir Charles Lyell, Mr. Proctor, or Professor Tyndall, than for the same sort of dicta from a Middle Age monk, we shall go on calling for proof. Our credulity is incapable of saying ‘we know’ about a thing of which, when we examine, nobody ‘knows’ anything, except that some scientific man asserts it in his book.
“We are not ‘enemies to science;’ we only want science, and not guesses. And the thoroughly unscientific, uncritical, and credulous way in which men like Mr. Proctor are declaring ‘we know’ about things of which they know nothing, is one of the greatest obstacles with which science has to contend.”
[8] “La Croix de Migné vengée de l’incrédulité du siècle.” Published at Paris, in 1829.
[9] “Account of the Miraculous Events at Rome in the years 1792 and 1793.” Published in London, by Keating and Brown, Duke Street, Grosvenor Square.
[10] Hume’s “Essays and Treatises on Various Subjects,” second edition, vol. ii. p. 122. London, 1784.
[11] Ibid. vol. ii. p. 133.
[12] Take for example the subject of meteoric stones. Marked changes with regard to a belief in these, have existed in the past. The scholar can testify that antiquity is undoubtedly in favour of their existence. Plutarch, for example, in his “Life of Lysander,” describes a celebrated aerolite which fell in Thrace, and History testifies unmistakably to similar events—more particularly to the preservation of such in ancient temples. Yet it was not until the year 1803, when meteoric stones fell at L’Aigle in Normandy, that the Academy of Sciences in Paris appointed a committee to investigate the case, and their report determined the question. Mr. W. G. Nevill, F.G.S., of Gresham Street, City, London, comprises the above in the following testimony to facts which appeared in the “Standard,” of Feb. 25, 1873. “With reference to a paragraph headed ‘An Exercise of Credulity’ in your paper of the 24th instant, allow me to offer a few observations, as the circumstance narrated therein of the fall of an aerolite on board the Seven Stones light-vessel, as narrated by the crew, is of extreme interest. The men in the light-vessel service are carefully selected by the elder brethren of the Trinity House and trained to make observations on the weather and record them in books at the time, which books are received as evidence in the Admiralty Court. Their account agrees in the main with the details given in other cases. My father, Mr. W. Nevill, of Godalming, has a collection of specimens of 226 distinct falls of such bodies. These take place in all parts of the world. I believe only one instance has before been recorded in England. That occurred at Wold Cottage, Thwing, Yorkshire, on Dec. 13, 1795. One of the earliest recorded falls took place at Guisheim, in Alsace, during a battle, Nov. 7, 1492, and was preserved in the neighbouring church. A large shower of stones took place at L’Aigle, in north of France, on April 26, 1803 (not very far from the Seven Stones). These stones are of a grey ashy colour and invariably coated with black enamel; other meteorites are composed of solid native iron, and are sometimes of large size, as the one at Bitburg in Rhenish Prussia, which weighed several tons.”