29 AUGUST 1874, Page 14

[To THE EDITOR OF Tall SPECTATOR:1 Sta,—I cannot help asking

you to turn to Locke on the "Human Understanding," book iv., c. iii., sec. 6. A careful reading of this paragraph will show, at least, this much,—that a man may believe in the existence of God and in the non-eternity of matter, and yet go so far as to say that matter may be endowed with the faculty of thinking, and that it makes no difference to the Christian doctrine of responsibility, whether we amigo to matter. this potency or not.

Locke's arguments may not be valid, but, at any rate, they were so to himself ; and they show that this great thinker and sober Christian would not have seen all morality and religion endangered by a system of speculation which discerned in matter "the promise and potency of every form and quality of life." One is anxious that no man should be hurried into atheism, and hopes that even yet the belief in God's existence need not be given up by all the disciples of 'I'yndall's physical philosophy, although, for the teacher himself, that belief may have "melted into the infinite azure of the past." Locke's case may help some to pause before they say in their hearts there is no God ; for it certainly shows that a man may have a real reverence for its Creator, and yet speak of matter in terms which are extremely offensive to a more

spiritual philosophy.-.-I am, Sir, &c., A CLERGYNAN.