"These things are done as the professed results and the newest triumphs of Modern Thought and Modern Science; but I believe that neither Science nor Thought is responsible, any more than Liberty is responsible, for the misdeeds committed in their names. Upon the ground of what is termed evolution, God is relieved of the labour of creation; in the name of unchangeable laws, He is discharged from governing the world; and His function of judgment is also dispensed with, as justice and benevolence are held to forbid that men should hereafter be called to strict account for actions, which under these unchangeable laws they may have committed. But these are only the initial stages of the process. Next we are introduced to the doctrine of the Absolute and the Unconditioned; and under the authority of these phrases (to which, and many other phrases, in their proper places, I have no objection) we are instructed that we can know nothing about God, and therefore can have no practical relations with Him. One writer--or, as it is now termed, thinker--announces with pleasure that he has found the means of reconciling Religion and Science. The mode is in principle most equitable. He divides the field of thought between them. To Science he awards all that of which we know, or may know, something; to Religion he leaves a far wider domain,--that of which we know, and can know, nothing. This sounds like jest, but it is melancholy earnest; and I doubt whether any such noxious crop has been gathered in such rank abundance from the press of England in any former year of our literary history as in this present year of our redemption, eighteen hundred and seventy-two." (pp. 22-3.) The writer, or thinker, mentioned by Mr. Gladstone is thus described at the end of the address, p. 33:--"My reference is to Mr. Herbert Spencer. See his 'First Principles,' and especially the chapter on the 'Reconciliation of Science and Religion.' It is needless to cite particular passages. It would be difficult to mistake its meaning, for it is written with great ability and clearness, as well as with every indication of sincerity. Still it vividly recalls to mind an old story of the man who, wishing to be rid of one who was in his house, said, 'Sir, there are two sides to my house, and we will divide them; you shall take the outside.' "I believe Mr. Spencer has been described in one of our daily journals as the first thinker of the age."