“But I should be very sorry if an interpretation founded on a most conjectural scientific hypothesis were to get fastened to the text in Genesis, even if by so doing it got rid of the old statement of the commentators which has long ceased to be intelligible. The rate of change of scientific hypothesis is naturally much more rapid than that of Biblical interpretations, so that if an interpretation is founded on such an hypothesis, it may help to keep the hypothesis above ground long after it ought to be buried and forgotten. “At the same time I think that each individual man should do all he can to impress his own mind with the extent, the order, and the unity of the universe, and should carry these ideas with him as he reads such passages as the 1st chapter of the Epistle to Colossians (_see_ ‘Lightfoot on Colossians,’ p. 182), just as enlarged conceptions of the extent and unity of the world of life may be of service to us in reading Psalm viii., Heb. ii. 6, etc.” And again in his letter[48] to the secretary of the Victoria Institute giving his reasons for declining to become a member-- “I think men of science as well as other men need to learn from Christ, and I think Christians whose minds are scientific are bound to study science, that their view of the glory of God may be as extensive as their being is capable of. But I think that the results which each man arrives at in his attempts to harmonise his science with his Christianity ought not to be regarded as having any significance except to the man himself, and to him only for a time, and should not receive the stamp of a society.” Professor Campbell and Mr. Garnett have given us the evidence of those who were with him in his last days, as to the strength of his own faith. On his death bed he said that he had been occupied in trying to gain truth; that it is but little of truth that man can acquire, but it is something to know in whom we have believed. CHAPTER VII. SCIENTIFIC WORK--COLOUR VISION. Fifteen years only have passed since the death of Clerk Maxwell, and it is almost too soon to hope to form a correct estimate of the value of his work and its relation to that of others who have laboured in the same field.