ADDRESS DELIVERED BEFORE THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION ASSEMBLED AT BELFAST _WITH ADDITIONS_ BY JOHN TYNDALL, F.R.S. PRESIDENT FIFTH THOUSAND LONDON LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 1874 '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. I. p. 76. 'It were better to have no opinion of God at all, than such an opinion as is unworthy of Him; for the one is unbelief, the other is contumely.' BACON. PREFACE. At the request of my Publishers, strengthened by the expressed desire of many Correspondents, I reprint, with a few slight alterations, this Address. It was written under some disadvantages this year in the Alps, and sent by instalments to the printer. When read subsequently it proved too long for its purpose, and several of its passages were accordingly struck out. Some of them are here restored. It has provoked an unexpected amount of criticism. This, in due time, will subside; and I confidently look forward to a calmer future for a verdict, founded not on imaginary sins, but on the real facts of the case. Of the numberless strictures and accusations, some of them exceeding fierce, of which I have been, and continue to be, the object, I refrain from speaking at any length. To one or two of them, however, out of respect for their sources, I would ask permission briefly to refer. An evening paper of the first rank, after the ascription of various more or less questionable aims and motives, proceeds to the imputation, that I permitted the cheers of my audience to 'stimulate' me to the utterance of words which no right-minded man, without a sense of the gravest responsibility, could employ. I trust the author of this charge will allow me in all courtesy to assure him that the words ascribed by him to the spur of the moment were written in Switzerland; that they stood in the printed copy of the Address from which I read; that they evoked no 'cheers,' but a silence far more impressive than cheers; and that, finally, as regards both approbation and the reverse, my course had been thought over and decided long before I ventured to address a Belfast audience.