But the most serious obstacle of a public nature which can possibly impede the progress of science--an obstacle before which all others sink into absolute insignificance--is _the reign of prejudice_, or the unwillingness to adopt the teachings of science, and to accept her legitimate conclusions through certain preconceived opinions, the result of a faulty education or a vicious temperament. To this, indeed, we think the British Association cannot pay too much attention, and we were not a little gratified, in consequence, at the eloquent lecture on the use of the imagination in science delivered by Professor Tyndall. The importance of such a discourse at such a time to clear the atmosphere of the clouds of prejudice which a mistaken zeal has raised in the minds of a large class cannot be over-estimated. Since it is certain that religious intolerance and religious bigotry are the largest sources of prejudice, the removal of these ought to be a primary object of the association, and when the undertaking is made with the same spirit of reverence, the same earnestness of purpose, and philosophical acumen which distinguished Professor Tyndall’s discourse, it seems impossible to doubt that much benefit must ultimately result thereby to the cause of truth. The impression produced on our minds by that philosophical masterpiece will not be easily effaced. As we listened in that crowded hall with admiration to the thoughtful investigator who was unfolding to us the workings of a mind much more than ordinarily acute, we pictured to ourselves the effect which it was so well calculated to produce in the mind of the sceptic in science. We saw in imagination the victory of conscience and reason, the emancipation of a soul, the new birth of an intelligence. As the speaker welded one link to another of the long chain of ratiocination, his ardour rising with the progress of his argument, we thought that it had never been our good fortune to listen to so splendid a discourse. But the end was not yet. The grand appeal had still to be made. In a magnificent peroration Professor Tyndall concluded an argument of no common order--an argument not fitted, indeed, to assuage the terrors of a vicious imagination; an argument which may perchance have grated harshly on the sacerdotal ear; but an argument which elicited thunders of applause from an audience more than usually critical--with an appeal of unrivalled eloquence to abandon dogmatism for ever, and fairly bring every hypothesis before the bar of a disciplined reason. The place and the people were worthy of the man. In a vast hall whose name recalls the finest relics of the old English ballad were gathered together all that the most populous and intelligent shire of Britain could produce of talent and influence, while grouped around the presidential chair were many of the most brilliant ornaments of British science and the representatives of foreign philosophy. It may, indeed, be surmised