Dr. Tyndall is the fairest and ablest representative of that class of scientific men who to-day are denying the efficacy of prayer--that is, of such prayer the answer to which would seem to involve the interference of personal volition in the economy of nature; and he believes in the existence of a God. He has again and again repelled with feeling the imputation of atheism which the English theologians have inconsiderately and unfairly cast upon him. He is a frank, outspoken man, and he admits that in "his hours of weakness and doubt" he has temptations to material atheism. "But," he says, "I have noticed that it is not in hours of clearness and vigor that this doctrine commends itself to my mind, and that in presence of stronger and healthier thoughts it ever disappears as offering no solution of the mystery in which we dwell and of which we form a part."[427] He also expresses his conviction that "the Power which works for righteousness is _intelligent_ as well as ethical."[428] And furthermore he asserts that "it is no departure from scientific method to place behind natural phenomena _a universal Father_ who, in answer to the prayers of his children, alters the currents of those phenomena. Thus far theology and science go hand in hand."[429] Let it, then, be distinctly remembered that we are arguing with men who believe in the existence of God. In an article which appeared in the _Fortnightly Review_ for August, 1872, entitled "Statistical Inquiries into the Efficacy of Prayer," by Francis Galton, a species of guerrilla warfare is opened on this doctrine from the stand-point of experience.