th your Lordship's. But I am not the less
grateful for the amount of erudition and thought carefully directed to
definite points, and above all for the noble example of unwearied
research and freedom in stating its consequences, in reference to
subjects which scarcely ever occupy the attention of the clergy in our
country.

I am, My Lord,
Yours very faithfully,
G.B. AIRY.

_The Lord Bishop of Natal_.

* * * * *

Here also is a letter on the same subject, written to Professor
Selwyn, Professor of Divinity at Cambridge:--

ROYAL OBSERVATORY, GREENWICH,
LONDON, S.E.,
_1866, May 5_.

MY DEAR SIR,

The MS. concerning Colenso duly arrived.

I note your remarks on the merits of Colenso. I do not write to tell
you that I differ from you, but to tell you why I differ.

I think that you do not make the proper distinction between a person
who invents or introduces a tool, and the person who uses it.

The most resolute antigravitationist that ever lived might yet
acknowledge his debt to Newton for the Method of Prime and Ultimate
Ratios and the Principles of Fluxions by which Newton sought to
establish gravitation.

So let it be with Colenso. He has given me a power of tracing out
truth to a certain extent which I never could have obtained without
him. And for this I am very grateful.

As to the further employment of this power, you know that he and I use
it to totally different purposes. But not the less do I say that I owe
to him a new intellectual power.

I quite agree with you, that the sudden disruption of the old
traditional view seems to have unhinged his mind, and to have sent him
too far on the other side. I would not give a pin for his judgment.

Nevertheless, I wish he would go over the three remaining books of the
Tetrateuch.

I know something of Myers, but I should not have thought him likely to
produce anything sound on such things as the Hebrew Scriptures. I
never saw his "Thoughts."

I am, my dear Sir,
Yours very truly,
G.B. AIRY.

_Professor Selwyn_.

* * * * *

The following letter has reference to Airy's proposal to introduce
certain Physico-Mathematical subjects into the Senate-House
Examination for B.A. Honors at Cambr