to assume that it would
not. Or supposing a planet carved from the sun, set spinning round an
axis, and sent revolving round the sun at a distance equal to that of
our earth, would one consequence of the refrigeration of the mass be
the development of organic forms? I lean to the affirmative.' This is
plain speaking, but it is without 'dogmatism.' An opinion is
expressed, a belief, a leaning--not an established 'doctrine.'

The burthen of my writings in this connection is as much a recognition
of the weakness of science as an assertion of its strength. In 1867,
I told the working men of Dundee that while making the largest demand
for freedom of investigation; while considering science to be alike
powerful as an instrument of intellectual culture, and as a ministrant
to the material wants of men; if asked whether science has solved, or
is likely in our day to solve, 'the problem of the universe,' I must
shake my head in doubt. I compare the mind of man to a musical
instrument with a certain range of notes, beyond which in both
directions exists infinite silence. The phenomena of matter and force
come within our intellectual range; but behind, and above, and around
us the real mystery of the universe lies unsolved, and, as far as we
are concerned, is incapable of solution.

While refreshing my mind on these old themes I appear to myself as a
person possessing one idea, which so over-masters him that he is never
weary of repeating it. That idea is the polar conception of the
grandeur and the littleness of man--the vastness of his range in some
respects and directions, and his powerlessness to take a single step
in others. In 1868, before the Mathematical and Physical Section of
the British Association, then assembled at Norwich, I repeat the same
well-worn note:

'In thus affirming the growth of the human body to be mechanical, and
thought as exercised by us to have its correlative in the physics of
the brain, the position of the "materialist," as far as that position
is tenable, is stated. I think the materialist will be able finally
to maintain this position against all attacks, but I do not think he
can pass beyond it. The problem of the connection of body and soul is
as insoluble in its modern form as it was in the pre-scientific ages.
Phosphorus is a constituent of the human brain, and a trenchant German
writer has exclaimed, "Ohne Phosphor kein Gedanke!" That may or may
not be the case; but, even if we kn