From Alfred Wills   30 April 1862¹

Esher, |Surrey. | 30 April 1862

Dear Tyndall

I bought a day or two ago your little Alpine book.² I have not had time to read it yet but in cutting open the leaves I met with something that caught my eye and read your chapter entitled ‘Reflections.’ It is one for w^h. you can hardly fail to be hauled over the coals by the religious—or so called religious world—and therefore I hope you will not take amiss a word of thanks for that chapter. It is bold, manly & suggestive & will do good—and I am glad indeed when I find a true man of science uttering straightforwardly what many think but will not say. I have thought a great deal on subjects such as you trench upon there—& have perhaps approached them from a different quarter from that from which you have come to them. The events wh. have passed over my head³ since I saw much of you have not tended to diminish the interest of such inquiries to me nor to render less reverent the spirit in which I view them—but the more I think about them the more deeply convinced I am that pretty nearly every consideration, moral, spiritual, historical, scientific which I can understand makes against the miraculous—that the notion of it leads to an unworthy conception of the Great Supreme—and that to confound miracle with religion will become, if it is not already, one of the most fruitful sources or irreligion (w^h. here in a very different scene from that usually given to it in the language of polemics) and through irreligion, of immorality & misery. A great change must come—It is dawning already. The old forms of faith cannot co-exist with the ascertained results of modern investigation, whether in philosophy, science, criticism or history—and those who help to prepare the human mind for what it must have to consider & for the great change in our modes of thought & of belief which will be the consequence of such consideration do a great service to their day & to their race. Especially where their position, like yours, is such that they cannot speak without finding attentive & thoughtful hearers. Pray forgive my intruding these remarks on you, but you have touched in your book on a subject w^h. is to me of the deepest interest, & where you will be pretty sure to have many unfair & ingenuous attacks to meet, I felt that perhaps the sympathy of even so small a person as myself might not be unwelcome. Believe my dear Tyndall,

Yours faithfully | Alfred Wills

Prof. Tyndall F.R.S.

BL 63902-874E-10-51