ross
the boundary of the experimental evidence, and discern in that Matter
which we, in our ignorance of its latent powers, and notwithstanding our
professed reverence for its Creator, have hitherto covered with
opprobrium, the promise and potency of all terrestrial life."[C] A
little further on, speaking in the name of science, and on behalf of his
scientific fellow-workers (with what right is a little doubtful), he
adds--"We claim, and we shall wrest, from theology, the entire domain of
cosmological theory. All schemes and systems which thus infringe upon
the domain of science, must, _in so far as they do this,_ submit to its
control, and relinquish all thought of controlling it." But if science
is to control the knowable world, he generously leaves the remainder for
religion. He will not deprive it of a faith in "a Power absolutely
inscrutable to the intellect of man. As little in our days as in the
days of Job can a man by searching find this Power out." And, now that
he has left this empty sphere of the unknown to religion, he feels
justified in adding, "There is, you will observe, no very rank
materialism here."

[Footnote A: _The Critical Philosophy of Kant_, Vol. I. p. 34]

[Footnote B: _Address to the British Association_, 1874, p. 54.]

[Footnote C: _Belfast Address_, 1874.]

"Yet they did not abolish the gods, but they sent them well out
of the way,
With the rarest of nectar to drink, and blue fields of nothing
to sway."[A]

[Footnote A: Clerk Maxwell: "_Notes of the President's Address,_"
British Association, 1874.]

Now these declarations of Mr. Tyndall are, to say the least, somewhat
ambiguous and shadowy. Yet, when he informs us that eating and drinking
"illustrate the control of mind by matter," and "that the line of life
traced backwards leads towards a purely physical condition," it is a
little difficult to avoid the conclusion that he regards science as
destined.

"To tread the world
Into a paste, and thereof make a smooth
Uniform mound, whereon to plant its flag."[B]

[Footnote B: _Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau._]

For the conclusion of the whole argument seems to be, that all _we know
as facts_ are mere forms of matter; although the stubborn refusal of
consciousness to be resolved into natural force, and its power of
constructing for itself a world of symbols, gives science no little
trouble, and forces it to acknowledge complete ignorance of the nature
of the power from wh