to enable them in
coming times to dwell together, in unity of spirit and in the bond of
peace.

*****

And now the end is come. With more time, or greater strength and
knowledge, what has been here said might have been better said, while
worthy matters, here omitted, might have received fit expression. But
there would have been no material deviation from the views set forth.
As regards myself, they are not the growth of a day; and as regards
you, I thought you ought to know the environment which, with or
without your consent, is rapidly surrounding you, and in relation to
which some adjustment on your part may be necessary. A hint of
Hamlet's, however, teaches us how the troubles of common life may be
ended; and it is perfectly possible for you and me to purchase
intellectual peace at the price of intellectual death. The world is
not without refuges of this description; nor is it wanting in persons
who seek their shelter, and try to persuade others to do the same. The
unstable and the weak have yielded and will yield to this persuasion,
and they to whom repose is sweeter than the truth. But I would exhort
you to refuse the offered shelter, and to scorn the base repose--to
accept, if the choice be forced upon you, commotion before stagnation,
the breezy leap of the torrent before the foetid stillness of the
swamp. In the course of this Address I have touched on debatable
questions, and led you over what will be deemed dangerous ground--and
this partly with the view of telling you that, as regards these
questions, science claims unrestricted right of search. It is not to
the point to say that the views of Lucretius and Bruno, of Darwin and
Spencer, may be wrong. Here I should agree with you, deeming it
indeed certain that these views will undergo modification. But the
point is, that, whether right or wrong, we claim the right to discuss
them. For science, however, no exclusive claim is here made; you are
not urged to erect it into an idol. The inexorable advance of man's
understanding in the path of knowledge, and those unquenchable claims
of his moral and emotional nature, which the understanding can never
satisfy, are here equally set forth. The world embraces not only a
Newton, but a Shakspeare--not only a Boyle, but a Raphael--not only a
Kant, but a Beethoven--not only a Darwin, but a Carlyle. Not in each
of these, but in all, is human nature whole. They are not opposed, but
supplementary--not mutually