Principal Dawson thinks that
this was intended as irony. But the whole tone of the address, and
specially of the closing portion of it, in which this idea is advanced,
is far too serious to admit of such an explanation.
No one can read the address referred to without being impressed, and
even awed, by the immensity and grandeur of the field of knowledge which
falls legitimately within the domain of science. The perusal of that
discourse produces a feeling of humility analogous to the sense of
insignificance which every man experiences when he thinks of himself as
a speck on the surface of the earth, which itself is but a speck in the
immensity of the universe. And when a man of mere ordinary culture sees
Sir William Thomson surveying that field with a mastery of its details
and familiarity with all the recondite methods of its investigation, he
feels as nothing in his presence. Yet this great man, whom we cannot
help regarding with wonder, is so carried away by the spirit of his
class as to say, "Science is bound, by the everlasting law of honor, to
face fearlessly every problem which can fairly be brought before it. If
a probable solution, consistent with the ordinary course of nature, can
be found, we must not invoke an abnormal act of Creative Power." And,
therefore, instead of invoking Creative Power, he accounts for the
origin of life on earth by falling meteors.
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