Professor Tyndall, in a letter just published, which is ad-
dressed to the Rev. R. E. Hooppell, intimates his fixed belief in that " unscanned and inscrutable" power spoken of by 'Wordsworth which rolls through all things' which he first professed in the famous Belfast lecture. He takes care to add, however, that if Wordsworth's belief and his own were pushed into the least detail, "differences of the gravest kind" would at once disclose themselves. No doubt ; for Wordsworth's power which rolled through all things' was, before everything, a mind and a personal life, while Professor Tyndall's is " unscanned and inscrutable,"—i.e., we suppose, neither scanned nor scannable —in other words, an unknown quantity. Hence it is hard for us to understand how this power, of which we know nothing ex- cept what the word " power " reveals, is to be, as Professor Tyndall holds, the "profoundest theme of the poet in ages to come." Does not that imply a little more of either knowledge, or, at all events, of unjustifiable belief about it, than the mere abstract category of power everywhere continuous, itself
involves? If not, we cannot see in Professor Tyndall's admission any sort of religious element. Power is intrinsi- cally deserving of no worship ; and its supposed attribute of strict continuity, of which Professor Tyndall speaks in a tone of awe and reverence, does not strike us as adding any touch of spiritual significance to the conception. A circle is a perfect symbol of continuity, but it does not excite our adoration. We believe, however, that, without knowing it himself, Professor Tyndall attributes more than the sublimely negative attribute of "inscrutability" to the power which in his own belief "rolls through all things."
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