iment, they prolong
that curve into an antecedent world, and accept as probable the
unbroken sequence of development from the nebula to the present time.
You never hear the really philosophical defenders of the doctrine of
Uniformity speaking of impossibilities in nature. They never say,
what they are constantly charged with saying, that it is impossible
for the Builder of the universe to alter His work. Their business is
not with the possible, but the actual--not with a world which might
be, but with a world that is. This they explore with a courage not
unmixed with reverence, and according to methods which, like the
quality of a tree, are tested by their fruits. They have but one
desire--to know the truth. They have but one fear--to believe a lie.
And if they know the strength of science, and rely upon it with
unswerving trust, they also know the limits beyond which science
ceases to be strong. They best know that questions offer themselves
to thought, which science, as now prosecuted, has not even the
tendency to solve. They have as little fellowship with the atheist
who says there is no God, as with the theist who professes to know the
mind of God. 'Two things,' said Immanuel Kant, 'fill me with awe: the
starry heavens, and the sense of moral responsibility in man.' And in
his hours of health and strength and sanity, when the stroke of action
has ceased, and the pause of reflection has set in, the scientific
investigator finds himself overshadowed by the same awe. Breaking
contact with the hampering details of earth, it associates him with a
Power which gives fulness and tone to his existence, but which he can
neither analyse nor comprehend.

********************

There is one God supreme over all gods, diviner than mortals,
Whose form is not like unto man's, and as unlike his nature;
But vain mortals imagine that gods like themselves are begotten,
With human sensations and voice and corporeal members;
So, if oxen or lions had hands and could work in man's fashion,
And trace out with chisel or brush their conception of Godhead,
Then would horses depict gods like horses, and oxen like oxen,
Each kind the divine with its own form and nature endowing.

XENOPHANES Of COLOPHON (six centuries B.C.),
Supernatural Religion, vol. 1.

*****

IX. THE BELFAST ADDRESS.

[Footnote: Delivered before the British Association on We