Isabella, who, being princes of great capacity, employed their force in enterprises the most advantageous to their combined monarchy. The conquest of Granada from the Moors was then undertaken and brought near to a happy conclusion. And in that expedition the military genius of Spain was revived: honour and security were attained, and her princes, no longer kept in awe by a domestic enemy so dangerous, began to enter into all the transactions of Europe, and make a great figure in every war and negotiation."* It was at this time, too, and under the generous patronage of Isabella, that Columbus discovered a New World. If the power of the Moors had continued triumphant in Spain, would it have done more for civilization and scientific progress than Christianity did, even overrun as it was at that time by error and superstition?

I would not for a moment underrate the

* Hume's "History of England," chap. xxv.

B

benefit that science has conferred on mankind. By her mastery over the powers of nature she has established the means of communication between the most distant regions of the earth; has brought the productions of other countries to enrich our own, and carried the light of Christianity nearly over the whole world. Nevertheless, it is questionable whether science has ever done as much to ennoble mankind as art and literature, in both of which pursuits Spain shone conspicuously in her palmy days.

After a short sketch of the well-known discoveries of Copernicus and Giordano Bruno, Dr. Tyndall refers with great admiration to the materialistic views of the latter philosopher, who, he says, "Struck with the problem of the generation and maintenance of organisms, and duly pondering it, came to the conclusion that nature in her productions does not imitate the technic Her process is one of unravelling and Matter is not the mere

of man.

unfolding.

naked capacity which philosophers have pictured her to be, but the universal mother who brings forth all things as the fruit of her own womb." These theories unmistakably exclude the idea of a Creator and superintending Providence, and differ little, if at all, from downright atheism. It is therefore unfair for Darwin and Dr. Tyndall, when they find that they have shocked the public feeling, to say that they do believe in a God (after their own fashion). It is by the help of such an empty protest that many of their admirers, who have not time or opportunity to examine their arguments closely, are led to adopt and believe in doctrines which cannot be proved by the inductive process of reasoning. It is curious and lamentable to see how Dr. Tyndall, with this bigoted belief in molecular power, seizes with avidity on any speculative remark which may have fallen from the pen of some eminent man that may confirm his own opinion, whether in accordance or not with the

In this way he

general teaching of the writer. In this lays hold of some remarks of Descartes on the phenomena of life, as if a consummate mathematician must necessarily be an authority on physiology. He speaks of him "as the first to reduce, in a manner eminently capable of bearing the test of mental presentation, vital phenomena to purely mechanical principles.” In the same admiring spirit he mentions Gassendi, who was both a divine and a natural philosopher, a strong supporter of the molecular hypothesis, and one who Dr. Tyndall says contrived to outstrip Darwin. It seems, after a careful comparison of the doctrines of the atomic philosophers, that they may be divided into two classes-those who believe that the magic atoms were created, and those who must necessarily be driven to believe that they created themselves.

The Professor, in referring to various eminent writers who have held the atomic doctrine, in whole or part, mentions the names of Newton

and Dalton as if they had embraced the same extravagant theory, whereas Newton's grand mathematical law simply implied "that every particle of matter is attracted by, or gravitates to, every other particle of matter, with a force inversely proportionate to the square of the distance"; and Dalton's atomic theory was also of a totally different character, and had reference to the chemical law of multiple proportions. But even this ingenious hypothesis, which has been so valuable to the science of chemistry, has nevertheless, its discrepancies; for, as the late Professor Fownes remarks*: "It is indispensable to draw the broadest possible line of distinction between this, which is at the best but a graceful, ingenious, and, in its place, useful hypothesis, and those great general laws of chemical action which are the pure and unmixed result of inductive research."

* "A Manual of Chemistry." Fifth edition. Revised by H. Bence Jones and A. W. Hofman.