‘The first problem in human or social reform is _through what medium must it be made_. In what is called a religious state of society, that is, a state of idolatry and superstition, can reform be carried out through any other medium than its religion! My experience, added to the best advice I could find, is, that, with a religious people, religion is the only medium of reform. If I were opposed in that problem, I could successfully defend my side of it. The Charter shall change the constituency of the House of Commons, without improving the House. Socialism may create 20 Tytherlies, but it has still done nothing for the nation. But science thrown into the church as a substitute for superstition in the education of the people, begins at once to regenerate the people, the parliament, the institutions, and the throne. It is the substitution of the known for the unknown, the real for the unreal, the certain for the uncertain. Religion is the erroneous mind’s chief direction. It must be corrected by and through the medium which it most respects. It rejects all other opposing conditions, and increases its tenacity for its errors. To reform religion by science, is to regenerate fallen man, and to save a sinking country. 1. Cheltenham Free Press, Any. 1842. 2. Christian Warrior, p. 31, There is great wisdom in this language. The question is, _how_ shall the problem be solved? In this Carlile erred, as he did with the theory of personalities, which he conceived with equal ability. I conceive that Science is independent of Theology in its essence and its terms. Religion may be brought to science by adroit interpretations, and improved in character and significance; but Science can never be brought to Religion without being ‘paltered in a double sense,’ and lowered in dignity and intelligibility. CHAPTER IV. HIS DEATH AND CHARACTER Carlile’s death took place on this wise. He had come up from Enfield to Bouvene Street, Fleet Street, to live on the old field of war, and edit the _Christian Warrior._ While a van of goods were unpacking at the door, one of his boys strayed out and went away. Carlile was fond of his children, and he set out anxiously to seek his child. The excitement ended in death. On Carlile’s return he was seized with a fatal illness. Bronchitus, which he was told by his medical advisers would soon destroy him, if he came to live in the city, set in, and the power of speech soon left him. Mr. Lawrence, the author of the famous ‘Lectures on Man,’ whom Carlile always preferred in his illnesses, was sent for. He promptly arrived, but pronounced recovery hopeless; and Richard Carlile expired February 10,1843, in his fifty-third year.