The address before the annual meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science was an occasion to state the aims and concerns of the premiere body of elite men of Victorian science. It was consequently one of the most prestigious places from which to pronounce on what men of science should be doing. John Tyndall famously used his address in to argue for the superior authority of science over religious or non-rationalist explanations.
By the time of this address the Association had largely been taken over by the young guard, men like T. Huxley and Tyndall.
Nevertheless, Tyndall's bold statement for rationalism and natural law was made in Belfast, a stronghold of religious belief then as now and so it was taken as an aggressive attack on religion. The address was popularly believed to advocate materialism as the true philosophy of science.
It remains a powerful call for rationalism, consistency, and scepticism. London: Longmans, Green, and Co. In March George P. Landow reformatted the document and added links to materials on this site. Clicking upon superscript footnote numbers bring you to notes in the left-hand column; clicking upon the back button on your browser returns you to your place in the main text. History of the Intellectual Development of Europe , p. Depicted with terrible vividness in Renan's Antichrist.
See Huxley's admirable Essay on Descartes. Boyle's model of the universe was the Strasburg clock with an outside Artificer. Only to some; for there are dignitaries who even now speak of the earth's rocky crust as so much building material prepared for man at the Creation. Surely it is time that this loose language should cease. In Mr. Herbert Spencer Principles of Psychology , 2nd edit. The behaviour of Mr.
