.' tit '-
 
 UUSB LIUKAKY
 
 SCIENTIFIC SOPHISMS. 
 
 A REVIEW OF CURRENT THEORIES 
 CONCERNING ATOMS, APES, AND MEN. 
 
 BY 
 
 SAMUEL WAINWRIGHT, D.>, 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 "CHRISTIAN CERTAINTY," "THB MODERN AYKKNUS," fn, 
 
 NEW YORK : 
 FUNK & WAGNALLS, 
 
 10 AND 12 DEY STREET, 
 1883.
 
 "The true Shekinah is Man." Chrysostom. 
 
 " If a man is a materialist, we Germans think he is not edu- 
 cated." Prof. Tholuck. 
 
 " It is the first duty of a hypothesis to be intelligible." Prof. 
 Huxley.
 
 SCIENTIFIC SOPHISMS.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 ANALYTICAL OUTLINE vii 
 
 I. 
 THE RIGHT OF SEARCH I 
 
 II. 
 EVOLUTION ,, 
 
 III. 
 "A PUERILE HYPOTHESIS" 33 
 
 IV. 
 " SCIENTIFIC LEVITY "..._. 45 
 
 V. 
 A HOUSE OF CARDS ... 61 
 
 SOPHISMS . . 
 
 VI. 
 
 75 
 
 VII. 
 
 PROTOPLASM 
 
 VIII. 
 THE THREE BEGINNINGS ....
 
 vi Contents. 
 
 IX. 
 THE THREE BARRIERS . 169 
 
 XIII. 
 
 ANIMA MUNDI 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 PAfiF 
 
 X. 
 
 ATOMS ...... r ; ,8 7 
 
 XI. 
 ...... . . 203 
 
 XII. 
 
 MEN . . . . . 225 
 
 f 251 
 
 299
 
 ANALYTICAL OUTLINE OF CONTENTS, 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 THE RIGHT OP SEARCH. 
 
 AGNOSTICISM : and 
 Gnosticism : 
 
 Its Pretensions. 
 Prof. Clifford 
 
 His " Ethics of Religion"; 
 
 His new divinity. 
 Prof. Tyndall 
 
 His assumptions | 
 
 His admissions. 
 Their relation to 
 MATERIALISTIC ATHEISM : 
 Is it true ? 
 Is it demonstrable ? 
 Is it Scientific ? 
 
 CHAPTER IL 
 
 EVOLUTION. 
 EVOLUTION : 
 Theories of : 
 Three main varieties : 
 
 The Theistic, 
 The Atheistic, 
 The Agnostic. 
 
 Their rektion to the doctrine of 
 vti
 
 viii Analytical Outline of Contents. 
 
 Development : 
 
 Mr. Darwin's " view " ; and his Opinion. 
 
 His " opinion " may be questioned ; and 
 His " view " has not been shown to be true. 
 Is strongly Theistic, 
 Is shown by Professor Mivart to be 
 
 " Not The Origin of Species," and 
 "Not antagonistic to Christianity." 
 The Theistic Doctrine 01 Evolution : 
 
 (Its three main Varieties) 
 Maintained by Mr. Darwin ; but 
 Opposed by Professors Huxley and Tyndall. 
 Prof. Tyndall "abandons," once lor all "the conception 
 
 of creative acts." 
 Prof. Huxley excludes "the intervention or any but what 
 
 are termed secondary causes." 
 Evolution : 
 
 As strictly denned, 
 As popularly understood. 
 The validity of the Facts 
 
 Independent of every Theory as to their Cause. 
 The Phenomenal Sequence, 
 
 Not the Ideal Hypothesis, 
 A Universal Law. 
 The Ideal Hypothesis, which 
 
 " Derives man in his totality from the inter- 
 action 01 organism and environment through 
 countless ages past." 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 "A PUERILE HYPOTHESIS." 
 Erolntion : 
 
 " Baldest of all philosophies " 
 Involves two points. 
 I. ASCENSIVE DEVELOPMENT : 
 Negatived by 
 
 "The positively ascertained truths of Palaeon- 
 tology."
 
 Analytical Outline of Contents. ix 
 
 [I. THE TRANSMUTATION OF SPECIES. 
 
 " Not Proven " (Prof. Huxley j. 
 " Of direct and positive testimony " 
 "There is no fragment whatever " (Dr. Elam). 
 Mr. Darwin's admissions 
 
 " Fatal " to his theory 
 Condemned by Prof. Mivart. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 "SCIENTIFIC LEVITY.* 
 
 AGNOSTIC EVOLUTION : 
 
 An Unverified Hypothesis 
 
 Based on two subordinate hypotheses 
 
 Equally unverified, 
 
 (1) Spontaneous Generation. 
 
 (2) The Transmutation of Species. 
 SPONTANEOUS GENERATION. 
 
 " Does life grow out of dead matter? " (Prof. Whewell.) 
 " It is a result absolutely inconceivable." (Mr. Darwin.) 
 "Not supported by any evidence." (Dr. Carpenter.) 
 " Scientific Levity." (Humboldt.) 
 From Matter to Life : 
 
 The attempts to bridge the chasm 
 
 Have all failed. 
 The "nucleated vesicle" 
 
 Is on the wrong side of the gulf. 
 The " chemico-electric operation " 
 
 Is a mere " supposition." 
 The " Protogenes of Haeckel," and 
 
 Dr Elam's refutation of Mr. Spencer. 
 The "line of demarcation 
 
 between the organic and the inorganic 
 
 Is as wide as ever." 
 Chemistry : Its century of triumphs. 
 
 Its one conspicuous Failure. Hence
 
 x Analytical Outline of Contents. 
 
 SPONTANEOUS GENERATION is 
 
 " An astounding hypothesis " (Dr. Carpenter) 
 "Vitiated by error " (Prof. Tyndall), and 
 
 " Utterly discredited." (Virchow.) 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 A HOUSE OF CARDS. 
 
 Agnostic Evolution : Not scientifically true. 
 
 " A flimsy framework of hypotheses." (Dr. Elam.) 
 Devoid of " experimental demonstration." (Tyndall.) 
 
 Its Fundamental Proposition : 
 
 Condemned by Scientific Authorities 
 
 " The older and honoured chiefs in Natural Science ;" 
 
 (Darwin.) 
 "A minority of minds of high calibre and culture." 
 
 (Tyndall.) 
 
 The New Syllogisms : 
 
 " Probable " ; " provisional " ; " uncertain." 
 " Reason to suppose : " (Mr, Spencer) 
 
 " I can imagine :" (Prof. Tyndall) 
 
 " It is conceivable." (Mr. Darwin) 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 SOPHISMS. 
 
 I. Prof. Haeckel's Genealogy : 
 
 Its hypothetical completeness : Dependent on 
 
 Its Continuity "in nubibus." 
 
 Refuted by Du Bois Reymond. 
 His Fundamental Postulates : 
 
 Incapable of Proof. 
 
 Monera ; Gastreada ; Amphioxus. 
 Accepted by Mr. Huxley. And yet 
 
 Mr. Huxley admits that 
 
 The doctrine of Evolution involves the assump- 
 tion of 
 
 Spontaneous Generation ; while this last has 
 " No experimental evidence in its favour." 
 
 Supported by "no valid or intelligible reason."
 
 Analytical Outline of Contents. xi 
 
 II. BIOGENESIS : 
 
 Harvey, and Francesco Redi. 
 Paradoxical position of Mr. Huxley. 
 
 (1) As a Biogenist, he holds that 
 
 " All living matter has sprung from pre-existing 
 living matter." 
 
 (2) As an Abiogenist, he thinks that 
 
 Life may "some day be artificially brought 
 together." 
 
 (3) He thinks this has never yet been done. But yet 
 
 (4) If he had been living in the remote Past 
 
 He should expect to have seen it done. 
 
 III. Prof. Tyndall's Fallacies 
 
 (1) The " impulse inherent in primeval man." 
 
 (2) " The possible play of molecules in a cool- 
 
 ing planet." 
 
 (3) " Physical theories beyond the pale of ex- 
 
 perience." 
 
 (4) His imagining the unimaginable. 
 
 (a) The passage from physics to conscious- 
 ness 
 
 Is " unthinkable." And yet he says 
 (6) " By an intellectual necessity 
 
 I cross the boundary." 
 
 (5) He tells us of 
 
 (a) " The chasm between the two classes 
 
 of phenomena." 
 
 (b) He declares this chasm to be 
 
 " Intellectually impassable " ; and yet 
 
 (c) He proclaims his belief in 
 
 " The Continuity of Nature." 
 
 (6) The Continuity of an "impassable chasm" 
 
 (a) A chasm "intellectually impassable"; 
 
 and yet 
 
 (b) " By an intellectual necessity" 
 He crosses it. 
 
 IV. The Homers of Modern Materialism * 
 
 Buchner, Oken, Haeckel, Huxley. 
 
 " quandoque bonus dormitat Homerus."
 
 xii Analytical Outline of Contents. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 PROTOPLASM. 
 
 Origin of the word. 
 
 The Physiological Cell Theory. 
 The several 5 tages which marked the 
 Application of the word. 
 
 Dujardin, Von Mohl, Cohn, Remak, Max Schultze. 
 Prof. Huxley's employment of it to denote 
 " The Physical Basis of Life : " 
 
 "The one kind of matter which is common to all 
 
 living beings," and 
 
 Ultimately resolvable into the same chemical con- 
 stituents. 
 Ulterior Assumptions : 
 
 By which Protoplasm, From being the "basis" 
 
 Becomes the " Matter of Life." 
 That all organisms consist alike of the same "matter 
 
 of life." 
 
 That this " matter of life " is due to Chemistry alone. 
 That all the activities of life, 
 
 Thought, Conscience, Will, 
 Arise solely from, 
 
 "The arrangement of the mo- 
 lecules of ordinary matter." 
 MATERIALISM of Mr. Huxley's doctrine. 
 
 In what sense disavowed by him. 
 Refuted by Dr. Stirling. 
 
 His admission, that "Most undoubtedly the terms 
 of his propositions are distinctly materialistic." 
 E.g., "The thoughts to which I am now giving 
 utterance, and your thoughts regarding them, 
 are but the expression of molecular changes in 
 that matter of life which is the source of our 
 other vital phenomena." 
 Mr. Huxley's doctrine, then, is "distinctly material- 
 
 istic " 
 But,
 
 Analytical Outline of Contents, xiii 
 
 Is IT TRUE ? 
 
 " I know of no form of negation sufficiently explicit, 
 comprehensive, and emphatic, in which to reply 
 to this question." (Dr. Elam) 
 I. It is in no sense true that Protoplasm " breaks up," 
 
 as Prof. Huxley says it does. 
 
 II. (CO 2 ), (H 2 O), and (NH 3 ) cannot, by any combination, 
 be brought to represent 
 
 C36H 26 N 4 O 10 , which is the equivalent of protein, 
 or protoplasm. 
 
 III. It is not true that when carbonic acid, water, arid 
 
 ammonia disappear, 
 
 An " equivalent weight of the matter of life " 
 makes its appearance. 
 
 IV. In the two processes which Mr. Huxley regards as 
 
 identical 
 
 (i.e., the formation of water and of protoplasm) 
 " There is no resemblance whatever." 
 V. The proposition that Life is a product of Protoplasm 
 
 Is demonstrably untrue. 
 
 VI. The proposition that life is a property of Protoplasm 
 Is equally untrue. 
 
 (Contrast between " aquosity " and "vitality.") 
 VII. Martinus Scriblerus Redivivus. 
 
 The "development" of meat-jacks. 
 VIII. The identity of Protoplasm, "living or dead," 
 Assumed by Mr. Huxley. 
 Denied by the Germans. 
 
 Involves a whole train of Effects without a Cause. 
 IX. The fulcrum on which Mr. Huxley's Protoplasmic 
 
 Materialism rests 
 Is a single inference 
 From a chemical analogy. 
 This analogy has two references, and fails in both 
 
 of them. 
 
 The relation of the organic [protoplasm] to the 
 
 inorganic [water] 
 
 Is not an analogy, but an antithesis. 
 The gulf between Death and Life.
 
 xiv Analytical Oiitline of Contents. 
 
 X. The entire Theory ,. ^ 
 
 Summed up in two Proposition*. 
 " Protoplasm is the clay of the Potter " 
 The bricks are .the same (says Mr. Huxley) 
 
 Because the clay is the same.^ 
 But 
 
 Is the clay the same ? 
 
 Can it be identified ? as Mr. Huxley affirms. 
 Examination of the alleged three-fold unity, Faculty, 
 
 Form, Substance. 
 Instead of "identity " there is 
 
 " An infinite diversity." 
 
 XI. Protoplasm not convertible 
 
 As alleged by Mr. Huxley. 
 
 Functions, too, are inconvertible, and 
 are 
 
 Independent of mere chemical com- 
 position. 
 XII. As of the Bricks, then, so of the Clay : 
 
 It is not identical 
 
 It is not convertible 
 
 It includes 
 
 " An Infinitude of various Kinds." 
 
 XIII. Mr. Huxley's Variations : 
 
 A complete Revolution of Opinion. 
 
 XIV. His "subtle influences" 
 
 Invoked to supersede "Vitality." 
 The Bases of Physical Life = (?) 
 The Physical Basis of Life 
 Cf. " The iron basis of the candle," with 
 " The basis of the iron candle " 1 
 XV. His Refutation by Dr. Beale. 
 
 " I doubt if in the whole range of 
 modern science it would be possible 
 to find an assertion more at variance 
 with facts familiar to physiologists." 
 XVI. His former maintenance of 
 
 "Vitality" and "Inertia." 
 
 XVII. Dogmatism of his assertions : Contrasted with Magnl* 
 tude of his admissions.
 
 Analytical Outline of Contents, xv 
 
 XVIII. Dr. Elam's exposure of his Chemistry. 
 
 " Proiessor Huxley's ' Chemistry of 
 Life ' has no foundation except that 
 ot deliberate and reiterated assertion." 
 XIX. "Exoretuo." 
 
 " That such verbal hocus-pocus should be re- 
 ceived as science will one day be regarded as 
 evidence ot the low state of intelligence in the 
 nineteenth .century." 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE THREE BEGINNINGS. 
 
 Evolution not Eternal. 
 
 The "First Beginnings (Lucretius). 
 Importance of the Fact : 
 
 There was " a first start " 
 
 There was more than one. 
 
 1. i. MATTER. 
 
 How ? Where ? Whence ? did it Begin 
 Its Nature 
 Its Properties 
 Its Powers 
 
 From what Source acquired? 
 
 " In the Beginning ? " 
 "The Atoms eternally falling." 
 
 Why "tailing?" 
 
 In an eternity "not eternal. 
 What Force was that which moved them ? 
 What Will was that which directed them ? 
 
 2. Force : 
 
 Operating in a given Order : and 
 Controlled by " Definite Laws." 
 ORDER : FORCE : LAW : 
 
 How came they to Begin ? 
 
 3. *' Mutual Interaction : 
 
 Of the molecules of the Primitive Nebulosity " 
 The sole and exclusive cause of "the whole world ; 
 living and not living."
 
 xvi Analytical Outline of Contents. 
 
 When these assumptions have been granted : 
 
 That the Nebulosity was real 
 
 That it was Primitive 
 
 That its constitutent molecules were not all imaginary 
 
 That the existing world is the result of their interaction 
 Then, the first question is more urgent than before : 
 " In The Beginning : " What was that 
 
 4. First Cause : 
 
 Equal, not only to the 
 Origination of Matter and of Force, but 
 Equal also to the 
 
 Origination of Matter thus constituted, and of 
 Force thus adjusted ? 
 
 5. Evolution : is thus seen to be the measure of 
 
 Involution. 
 
 Whatever has been evolved in the Effect 
 
 Was previously involved in the Cause. 
 
 6. Causa Causarum : What was that ? 
 
 In " The First Beginning " ? 
 II. LIFE. 
 
 " Of the causes which have led to the origina- 
 tion of living matter, it may be said that we 
 know absolutely nothing." (Huxley) 
 But, however inscrutable the mode, 
 There is no question, nor any room for question 
 
 As to the Fact : 
 
 . " Living matter " was " once originated." 
 Life had a BEGINNING. 
 
 Still more inscrutable is the Mystery which 
 shrouds 
 
 The First Emergence of 
 III THE SELF-CONSCIOUS MIND. 
 
 Mr. J. S. Mill on the Existence of Mind. 
 
 Huxley, Tyndall, and Spencer, on "States of 
 Consciousness." 
 
 "Consciousness," says Prof. Huxley, is "un- 
 accountable." 
 
 *' No one can prove that mind and life are in any 
 way related to chemistry and mechanics."
 
 Analytical Outline of Contents, xvii 
 
 Consciousness and Physics are incommensurable. 
 " Thought BEGAN to be." How ? 
 " Intelligence, self-conscious, emerged" 
 WHENCE ? 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE THREE BARRIERS. 
 
 Mr. Darwin on 
 
 The adaptation of organs, 
 The transmutation of animals, 
 The Origin of Instinct, 
 The ant, and the honey-bee. 
 His Theory of Neuters : 
 
 Fertile parents transmit, 
 
 through fertile progeny, 
 A tendency to produce sterility, 
 
 incapable of further production. 
 His oversight of 
 
 The evidence of Design. 
 His Remarkable Omissions. 
 His ingenious substitution of 
 
 The "conceivable " for the actual. 
 His habitual avoidance of 
 
 The profounder marvels of Nature, and 
 Their only true solvent 
 
 The ordination of God. 
 The Three Barriers of 
 
 Comparative Anatomy. 
 I. THE BACKBONE : 
 
 The basis of Strength. 
 An impassable Barrier 
 Until it can be shewn 
 
 How a butterfly could become a bird, 
 Or a snail, a serpent, 
 Or a star-fish acquire the skeleton of 
 a salmon or a shark.
 
 xviii Analytical Outline of Contents. 
 
 II. THE BREAST : 
 
 The type of Tenderness 
 
 Until it can be shewn 
 
 How an animal that never was 
 suckled stumbled on the capacity 
 of giving what it never got. 
 
 III. THE BRAIN : 
 
 The measure of Capacity. 
 . The Human Brain is Pleno-cerebral : 
 All other Brains are Manco-cerebral. 
 To all Men the pleno-cerebral type is common : 
 To Man, as such, it is PECULIAR. 
 The lowest Human Brain has the latent franchis* 
 of 
 
 Progressive Reason : 
 All other Brains have the rigid circumscription of 
 
 Unprogressive Instinct. 
 No brute is susceptible of Human Culture ; 
 No human infant is not so. 
 Between these two the Difference is Immeasurable 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 ATOMS. 
 
 " The Atoms are the First Beginnings." 
 What, then, are these Atoms ? 
 
 " Ultimate homogeneous units :** 
 
 Lange. Mr. Herbert Spencer. 
 
 " One ultimate form of Matter." 
 Dr. Tyndall's rejection of 
 
 Mr. Spencer's dictum. 
 Heterogeneity of the Atoms. 
 
 Chemical Phenomena 
 
 Not to be deduced from 
 
 Mechanical conditions. 
 Their grouping : Their varieties : 
 
 In shape ; In kind. 
 Their Motions, Forces, Affinities : 
 
 Inadequate to the problem proposed.
 
 Analytical Outline of Contents, xix 
 
 The "Atoms "are 
 
 NOT the Beginning. 
 
 They have "all the characteristics of 
 MANUFACTURED ARTICLES." 
 
 Sir John Herschel. 
 14 No Theory of Evolution can be formed to account for them." 
 
 Professor Maxwell. Professor Pritchard. 
 Sir William Thomson : 
 
 "The assumption of atoms can explain no pro- 
 perty of body which has not previously been 
 attributed to the atoms themselves." 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 APES. 
 
 Professor Tyndall's postulate : 
 
 That human ancestors were not human. 
 Mr. Darwin's : 
 
 "A series of forms graduating insensibly 
 From some ape-like creature 
 To man as he now exists." But 
 (i.) The series is not a series. 
 
 It has no continuity, and no concatenation, 
 (ii.) It does not " graduate insensibly." 
 
 It exhibits " breaks": "wide,- sharp, and 
 
 denned." 
 These breaks " incessantly occur in all parts 
 
 of the series." 
 
 (iii.) The "ape-like creature" is wholly hypo- 
 thetical. 
 
 It is absolutely non-existent. 
 There is no evidence that it ever was other- 
 wise. 
 Professor Huxley's 
 
 Cautious and conditional generalizations 
 Adverse to Mr. Darwin's theory.
 
 xx Analytical Outline of Contents. * 
 
 Professor Haeckel's 
 
 " Rogues in buckram." 
 
 Destitute of any single living representative. 
 
 Destitute of fossil evidence of their former existence. 
 The Chordonia 
 
 "Developed THEMSELVES" 1 
 The admissions of its advocates, are 
 
 Fatal to The Theory. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 MEN. 
 
 Prof. Huxley's dicta on 
 
 " The question of questions for mankind." 
 Contrast between Men and Apes : 
 
 As to cerebral structure. 
 
 As to cerebral weight. 
 
 As to " the great gulf in intellectual power 
 
 between lowest man and highest ape." 
 
 As to "the structural differences 
 
 which separate Man from the Gorilla." 
 No intermediate Link 
 
 bridges over the gap between Homo and Troglo- 
 dytes." 
 Paradoxes : 
 
 " Qui-qua-versal propositions." 
 "The UNMEASURABLE and practically infinite divergence 
 
 Of the Human from the Simian Stirps." 
 
 Its ' ' Primary Cause." 
 Psychical Distinctions. 
 Structural Distinctions. 
 Mr. Darwin's Testimony to 
 
 " The great break in the organic chain 
 
 Between man and his nearest allies, which 
 
 Cannot be bridged over 
 
 By any extinct or living species." 
 Prof. Mivart's Refutation of this theory. 
 
 Man, the apes, and the half-apes 
 
 Cannot be arranged in a single ascending series.
 
 Analytical Outline of Contents. xxi 
 
 The Lines of Affinity existing between different Primates 
 
 Construct a network : but not a ladder. 
 The Survival of the Fittest. 
 
 But the fittest (according to the Theory) 
 
 Have not survived. 
 
 The half-apes are with us to this day : 
 
 The half-men are nowhere. 
 Mr. Wallace's Demonstration 
 
 That the Origin of Man is to be found only in 
 
 An Act of Special Creation. 
 Mr. Mivart's Conclusion : 
 
 That Mr. Darwin "has UTTERLY FAILED 
 
 In the only part of his work which 
 is really important." 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 ANIMA MUNDI. 
 
 "A Soul in all things." 
 
 The Inorganic World. 
 
 Phenomena of Crystallization. 
 
 Prof. Tyndall's Fallacy ; 
 
 Pyramid builders : Architect : Controlling Power. 
 Prof. Tyndall's belief that 
 
 " The formation of a plant or an animal 
 
 Is a purely mechanical problem." 
 Prof. Huxley's assertion that 
 
 " A mass of living protoplasm 
 
 Is simply a molecular machine." 
 His resort to "subtle influences," 
 
 i.e., to Vital Force. 
 His assertion that 
 
 "A particle of jelly" guides forces. 
 
 Refuted by Dr. Beale. 
 Two Points involved in these assertions : 
 
 I. The introduction of Life ; 
 
 II. The manifestations of Mind.
 
 xxii Analytical Outline of Contents. 
 
 I. VITAL ACTION : In contrast with physico-chemical action 
 Is peculiar to living beings. 
 Haeckel's Testimony : 
 
 " The phenomena which living things pre- 
 sent have no parallel in the mineral 
 world." 
 Du Bois Reymond's : 
 
 "It is futile to attempt by chemistry to 
 bridge the chasm between the living 
 and the not-living. " 
 No machine can grow. 
 No machine can produce machines like itself. 
 
 II. MlND. I. " Horologity ": and the " watch-force ": 
 A combination of many forces, and 
 Their adjustment to a particular PURPOSE. 
 Its seat is in 
 
 The Intelligence which conceived that com- 
 bination ; and in 
 The Will which gave it effect. 
 This evidence of Design is shewn in Universal 
 
 Nature, 
 a. The Shell of the Barnacle. 
 
 3. The Electric Ray. 
 
 "It is impossible to conceive by what steps 
 these wondrous organs have been pro- 
 duced." (Mr. Darwin.) 
 
 4. The new-born Kangaroo. * 
 
 " Irrefragable evidence of Creative fore- 
 sight." (Prof. Owen.) 
 
 5. The Eye : " With all its INIMITABLE con- 
 
 trivances" (Mr. Darwin) (Prof. Pritchard.) 
 Nature is full of Plan. 
 
 Yet she plans not. 
 
 Where Science assumes a Use, 
 
 Religion affirms an Author. 
 The Question, For what? 
 Involves the further question, From whom!
 
 Analytical Outline of Contents, xxiii 
 
 Mr. Ruskin, on The Great First Cause 
 
 "Personal": and " A Supporting Spirit in all 
 
 things." 
 
 The Formative Cause. 
 The Living Power. 
 What is it ? and Whence / 
 "There is no answer." 
 Ascensive Life. 
 Language : Peculiar to Man : 
 
 "Thinker of God's thoughts after Him." 
 What is the Origin of Mind ? 
 The genesis of THOUGHT. 
 
 " Thaumaturgic." (Carlyle.) 
 " No mere function of The Brain." 
 " A World by itself." 
 VOLITION. Whence ? 
 
 A machine not mechanical. 
 " An automaton endowed with free will." 
 CONSCIOUSNESS. 
 
 "A rock on which Materialism must inevitably 
 
 split." (Tyndall.) 
 
 Perfectly " unaccountable." (Huxley.) 
 " Brain-waves." (Ruskin.) 
 SENSE OF RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 " Duty I ... WHENCE THY ORIGINAL? 
 
 (Kant.) 
 
 THE MAJESTIC SPECTACLE OF THE UNIVERSE 
 Is a spectacle for the eye of Reason. 
 Natural Agents working for ends which they them" 
 
 selves cannot perceive. 
 
 But ' ' Every house is builded by some man " \ 
 And 
 
 f HE THAT BUILT ALL THINGS, IS GOD."
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 THE RIGHT OF SEARCH. 
 
 " GOD created man " ? No such thing ! The 
 monads developed him. "The heavens declare 
 the glory of God " ? Far from it : " they de- 
 clare only the glory of the astronomer !" " We 
 have now no need of the hypothesis of God." 
 
 These utterances, and such as these, startling 
 alike to reverence and to faith, are the merest 
 common places of modern agnosticism. In- 
 stead of being, as once they were regarded, the 
 terminus ad quern, the ultimate goal, to which 
 unbelief was tending, tlfey have long since been 
 left behind as a mere terminus a quo, a tempo- 
 rary station for a new point of departure. The 
 scepticism which doubted has given place to the 
 dogmatism which denies. " Honest doubt" has 
 been supplanted by the clamour of a positive 
 self-assertion. A positivism of which Comte 
 knew nothing has usurped the authority, while 
 renouncing the functions, of scientific enquiry.
 
 26 Scientific Sophisms. 
 
 In a word, Agnosticism is no more, and Gnosti- 
 cism reigns in its stead. 
 
 Agnosticism made candid confession of its 
 ignorance. Gnosticism parades its pretensions 
 to knowledge. The former did not know : the 
 latter is quite sure. The Divine existence is 
 now declared to be not only unnecessary ; it is 
 absolutely unreal. God has no existence, even 
 hypothetically, except as the creature of the 
 human imagination. The hand may well trem- 
 ble that writes it, and the ears may tingle that 
 hear, yet it has been both written and said in 
 modes that demand more attention than they 
 have hitherto received There is no God \ ex- 
 cept such as man has made. " The dim and 
 shadowy outlines of the superhuman deity fade 
 slowly away from before us ; and as the mist of 
 his presence floats aside, we perceive with greater 
 and greater clearness the shape of a yet grander 
 and nobler figure of Him who made all gods 
 and shall unmake them." l 
 
 Who then is He, this "grander and nobler 
 figure," this great and only potentate "who 
 made all gods and shall unmake them"? this 
 " human " who dethrones " the superhuman 
 deity" ? It is man himself. " From the dim 
 
 1 Professor Clifford : " The Ethics of Religion," in The 
 Fortnightly Review, vol. xxii. New series, p. 52.
 
 The Right of Search. 27 
 
 dawn of history, and from the inmost depth of 
 every soul, the face of our father Man looks out 
 upon us with the fire of eternal youth in his 
 eyes, and says, ' Before Jehovah was, I am !' " l 
 
 And yet, this " Man our father," was once an 
 Ape: and, before that, "a jelly-bag." That 
 jelly-bag (which " made all gods and shall un- 
 make them ") sucking in water and sticking to 
 a stone, has advanced to its present august 
 condition by "a principle of development" and 
 "a process of evolution." It is true indeed 
 that the principle is one which nobody has ever 
 proved, and the process is one which nobody 
 has ever witnessed ; but woe to the unlucky 
 wight who dares to doubt their validity, or who 
 fails to recognise in " Mr. Charles Darwin, the 
 Abraham of scientific men." 2 
 
 " Most of you," says Professor Tyndall, " have 
 been forcecl to listen to the outcries and de- 
 nunciations which rang discordant through the 
 land for some years after the publication of 
 Mr. Darwin's ' Origin of Species.' Well, the 
 world even the clerical word has for the 
 
 1 Professor Clifford : " The Ethics of Religion," in The 
 Fortnightly Review, vol. xxii. New series, p. 52. Vide 
 in/rd: Appendix, Note A. 
 
 1 Prof. Tyndall : " Science and Man," in The Fort- 
 nightly Re-view, voL xxii. New series, p. 615.
 
 28 Scientific Sophisms. 
 
 most part settled down in the belief that Mr. 
 Darwin's book simply reflects the truth of 
 Nature : that we who are now ' foremost in the 
 files of time' have come to the front through 
 almost endless stages of promotion from lower 
 to higher forms of life." l 
 
 "The most part": but what of the rest, the 
 remaining part ? Let it stand in awe. If it 
 cannot be convinced it can be denounced. And 
 it is denounced accordingly. It is more base 
 and stupid than " even the clerical world." 
 He who belongs to it is ipso facto stigmatized 
 as ignorant and incompetent. 2 He is " unstable 
 and weak," s " a brawler and a clown." * 
 
 1 Prof. Tyndall : " Science and Man," in The Fort- 
 nightly Review, vol. xxii. New series, p. 611. 
 
 ' The great and venerated name of Von Baer is asso- 
 ciated by Haeckel with the idea of "harmless senile 
 garrulity." Adolf Bastian is a " Privy Councillor of 
 Confusion"; Du Bois-Raymond is a " rhetorical phrase- 
 spinner," if not a Professor of Voluntary Ignorance ; 
 while Carl Semper is a a person regardless of truth, 
 expressed in a brief word not usually heard among 
 gentlemen. "Haeckel," says Dr. Elam, "has probably 
 never heard of the insignificant names of Owen, Mivart, 
 and Agassiz, or they would doubtless have been remem- 
 bered in the catalogue of wretched smatterers who have 
 come under his signal disapproval." 
 
 3 Prof. Tyndall's "Address delivered at Belfast." 
 Longmans, 1874, p. 63. 
 
 4 Fortnightly Review, voL xxii. p. 614.
 
 The Right of Search. 29 
 
 But "methinks the lady doth protest too 
 much." Were these denunciations more dis- 
 passionate they might seem more disinterested. 
 As it is, they are too strenuous to" be forcible ; 
 too loud to be effective. Nor is this the worst 
 They have another fault more fatal still. They 
 are altogether irrelevant. They do not hit, 
 they merely miss, the mark. They are beside 
 the question* For the question is as to the 
 nature and character of the new doctrine. And 
 with that question the merits or demerits of 
 advocates and assailants are not concerned. 
 * Materialistic Atheism," we are told, " is in the 
 air." So be it : but then this same materialistic 
 atheism is either true or it is not. If it is not 
 true, let that be shown, and it will fall without 
 assailants. If it is true, let that be shown, and 
 it will then have no need of advocates. No one 
 thinks it necessary to take the field in defence of 
 the properties of conic sections ; and the foun- 
 dations of the venerable pons asinorum remain 
 unmoved and unimpaired from age to age. 
 Why then, in propounding that very open 
 secret, their latest discovery, should the demi- 
 gods of the scientific Olympus forsake their 
 philosophic calm for the irritating gusts of 
 irascible acerbity ? 
 
 Tantsene animis ccelestibus iras ?
 
 30 Scientific Sophisms. 
 
 They make their boast of truth. They pro- 
 claim aloud their contempt of consequences. 
 The boast would have been more becoming if 
 it had been less exclusive. Those who make 
 it will have a better claim to be heard when 
 they have learned, with the modesty of science, 
 to moderate the pretensions by which they 
 arrogate to themselves a monopoly of the virtue 
 which they say is theirs. When they tell us 
 that " Mr. Charles Darwin, the Abraham of 
 scientific men," is " a scholar as obedient to the 
 command of truth as was the patriarch to the 
 command of God," l we are under no necessity, 
 as we certainly have no inclination, to dispute 
 the accuracy of the assertion. But when to this 
 it is added that to reject Mr. Darwin's hypo- 
 thesis, and those of his coadjutors and com- 
 mentators, is " to purchase intellectual peace at 
 the price of intellectual death," 3 we ask for 
 the evidence in support of this assertion. That 
 evidence has yet to be produced. Is it pro- 
 ducible ? It is at all events not forthcoming. 
 Until the truth of these hypotheses has been 
 established it is not possible, in the name of 
 truth, to demand our acceptance of them. And 
 until then, as always, our position in relation to 
 
 1 Fortnightly Review, vol. xxii. p. 615. 
 1 " The Belfast Address," ut sup., p. 63.
 
 TJie Right of Search. 3 1 
 
 them must be determined, as it is now deter- 
 mined, by that paramount consideration, our 
 reverence for truth. 
 
 The necessity of meeting this conviction is 
 not unfelt by those to whom it is opposed ; and 
 their perception of its force is shown by the 
 remarkable admission contained in their reply. 
 It is the ideal Lucretian himself who is the 
 speaker : 
 
 ! " It is not to the point to say that the views 
 of Lucretius and Bruno, of Darwin and Spencer 
 may be wrong. Here I should agree with you, 
 deeming it indeed certain that these views will 
 undergo modification. But .the point is, that 
 whether right or wrong, we ask the freedom to 
 discuss them." 1 "As regards these questions 
 science claims unrestricted right of search." 3 
 
 Agreed. We desire nothing better. The 
 case must be argued before it is decided. And 
 it may not be prejudged. What is certain is, 
 "that the views of Lucretius and Bruno, of 
 Darwin and Spencer may be wrong " : " certain 
 that these views will undergo modification." 
 Certain therefore that "the world, even the 
 clerical world," in accepting these wrong views, 
 " has for the most part " gone wrong too, and, 
 
 1 "The Belfast Address," ut sup.', p. 64. 
 1 Ibid., p. 63.
 
 32 Scientific Sophisms. 
 
 sooner or later, not without harm and loss, will 
 have to return from the error of its ways. 
 
 Meantime, the inquiry to which we are chal- 
 lenged, though not without complex relations, is 
 in itself very simple. It is not to be influenced 
 by opinion. It is not to be biassed by pre- 
 judice. It is not to be decided by authority. 
 It is directed to the investigation of facts. It 
 must be guided, not by great names, but by 
 great principles. It must be kept distinct from 
 other, though collateral, inquiries ; and it must 
 be patiently pursued to no uncertain issue. 
 This Materialistic Atheism, propounded in the 
 name of Science : Is it true ? Is it demon- 
 strable ? Is it Scientific ?
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 EVOLUTION. 
 
 IT stumbles at starting. Of Evolution as al- 
 leged, there are several varieties ; and the theory 
 is at fault among them. A choice must be made, 
 and the choice is not easy. Natural Selection, 
 if it were not merely the nominal designation 
 of an unreal entity, might here render important 
 service; but as it is, is useless. And to spon- 
 taneous selection the choice is encumbered with 
 difficulties. Of these difficulties it is not the 
 least that, by the theory, spontaneous selection 
 is impossible : spontaneity is non-existent, save 
 in imagination. Since this little difficulty is 
 not (by the theory) to be surmounted, it must 
 be evaded ; and when it has been evaded the 
 labour of selection begins. 
 
 The varieties from which the selection must 
 be made may be classed in three main divisions ; 
 or, in other words, notwithstanding the protests 
 of those Darwinians who deny the existence
 
 34 Scientific Sophisms. 
 
 of species, they may all be referred to three 
 species : the theistic, the atheistic, and the 
 agnostic. 
 
 Evolutionists of the first class admit, while 
 those of the second deny, the existence of a 
 Divine Creator. By those of the third class, 
 that existence, while not by any means admitted, 
 is yet not explicitly denied. It is simply 
 ignored. They " have no need of the hypothesis 
 of God." Foremost among the leaders of this 
 latter class are Mr. Spencer and Professors 
 Huxley, Tyndall, and Bain. Less cautious or 
 more candid are Carl Vogt, Ernst Haeckel, and 
 Buchner, as representatives of atheistic develop- 
 ment ; while the theistic, its antithesis, is vindi- 
 cated by names of no less note than those 
 of Sir John Herschel, Sir William Thomson, 
 Professors Owen, Dawson, Gray, Dr. Carpenter, 
 and, at least in his earlier writings, Mr. Charles 
 Darwin himself. 
 
 The existence of these varieties is a fact at 
 once significant and instructive. Our present 
 concern, however, is not with these, except so 
 far as they serve to illustrate or demonstrate 
 the nature of the base which they have in 
 common. That doctrine of Development which 
 they all affirm : what is it ? What are its pre- 
 tensions ? Where are its proofs ?
 
 Evolution. 35 
 
 Let " the Abraham of scientific men " speak 
 first. 
 
 " It is interesting," he says, 1 "to contemplate 
 an entangled bank, clothed with many plants 
 of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, 
 with various insects flitting about, and with 
 worms crawling through the damp earth, and 
 to reflect that these elaborately-constructed 
 forms so different from each other, and depen- 
 dent on each other in so complex a manner, 
 have all been produced by laws acting around 
 us." "There is grandeur in this view of life, 
 with its several powers, having been originally 
 breathed into a few forms or into one." 
 
 The grandeur^ however, is questionable. It 
 may be nothing more than a figment of the 
 imagination, a mere matter of taste, or of 
 opinion ; but even if it were matter of fact, it is 
 not a matter with which we have any concern. 
 Our enquiry as to "this view of life" is not, 
 Can it be made to look grand ? but, Can it be 
 shown to be true ? 
 
 At present, this has not been shown. Even 
 Mr. Darwiin himself does not profess to " know," 
 he merely " believes," the truth of the doctrine 
 he propounds. " I believe," these are his words, 
 
 1 "Origin of Species." First Edition (Murray : 1859), 
 chap. xiv. pp. 489, 490.
 
 36 Scientific Sophisms. 
 
 "that animals have descended from at most 
 only four or five progenitors, and plants from 
 an equal or lesser number. Analogy would 
 lead me one step further, namely, to the belief 
 that all animals and plants have descended from 
 some one prototype. But analogy may be a de- 
 ceitful guide. Nevertheless ail living things have 
 much in common, . . . Therefore I should 
 infer from analogy that probably all the organic 
 beings which have ever lived on this earth have 
 descended from some one primordial form into 
 which life was first breathed." 1 
 
 But this "belief," which Mr. Darwin thinks 
 "probable," this "inference" derived from 
 " analogy," has never been verified. How could 
 it be verified, when its most ardent apostles 
 assure us that it may, after all, " be wrong," and 
 will "certainly" have to "undergo modifica- 
 tion ?"* But even if it had been verified it is 
 not "materialism," it is not "atheism," it is 
 not "agnosticism." It is the very reverse of 
 all these, for it is a manifesto of absolute 
 "theism." 
 
 "In my book on the 'Genesis of Species,'" 
 says Professor St. George Mivart, 3 " I had in 
 
 1 " Origin of Species." First Edition, chap. xiv. p. 484. 
 
 3 Prof. Tyndall, ut sup., p. 7. 
 
 1 "Lessons from Nature." Murray, 1876, p. 429.
 
 Evolution. 3 7 
 
 view two main objects. My first was to show 
 that the Darwinian theory is untenable, and that 
 'Natural Selection ' is not the origin of species. 
 My second was to demonstrate that nothing 
 even in Mr. Darwin's theory (as put forth before 
 the publication of his 'Descent of Man,') and, 
 d fortiori, nothing in Evolution generally, was 
 necessarily antagonistic to Christianity." 
 
 Reserving for further examination the first 
 of these propositions, "that the Darwinian 
 theory is untenable," it may be observed as to 
 the second, that of the theistic doctrine of 
 Evolution there are theoretically three main 
 varieties : (i) That which limits the supernatural 
 action in the origination of species to the crea- 
 tion of primordial cells. (2) That which, while 
 maintaining the intervention of direct or special 
 creation, regards the origination of species as 
 being for the most part effected indirectly, i.e., 
 through the agency of natural causes. (3) That 
 which regards God as immanent in natural law, 
 and recognises in all phenomena the result of 
 present Divine action. 
 
 In his earlier writings, the theism of Mr. 
 Darwin is most explicit. Thus, for example, 
 when speaking of certain birds found in Tierra 
 del Fuego, he says, "when finding, as in this 
 case, any animal which seems to play so insignifi- 
 
 C
 
 38 Scientific Sophisms. 
 
 cant a part in the great scheme of nature, one 
 is apt to wonder why a distinct species should 
 have been created ; but it should always be 
 recollected that in some other country perhaps 
 it is an essential member of society, or at some 
 former period may have been so." l And again : 
 In his description of the Passage of Cordillera, 
 he says, " I was very much struck with the 
 marked difference between the vegetation of 
 these eastern valleys and that of the opposite 
 side : yet the climate, as well as the kind of 
 soil, is nearly identical, and the difference of 
 longitude very trifling. The same remark holds 
 good with the quadrupeds, and in a lesser degree 
 with the birds and insects." "This fact," he 
 adds, "is in perfect accordance with the geo- 
 logical history of the Andes ; for these moun- 
 tains have existed as a great barrier since a 
 period so remote that whole races of animals 
 must subsequently have perished from the 
 face of the earth. Therefore, unless we sup- 
 pose the same species to have been created 
 in two different countries, we ought not to 
 expect any closer similarity between the organic 
 beings on opposite sides of the Andes, than 
 
 1 " Narrative of the Surveying Voyages of H.M.'s Ships 
 Adventure and Beagle" London, 1839. Vol. iii.
 
 Evolution* 39 
 
 on shores separated by a broad strait of the 
 sea." i 
 
 And to take but one other instance : In con- 
 cluding his review of the causes of extinction 
 of certain animals in Patagonia, he says, " We 
 see that whole series of animals, which have 
 been created with peculiar kinds of organi- 
 zation, are confined to certain areas ; and we can 
 hardly suppose these structures are only adapta- 
 tions to peculiarities of climate or country ; for 
 otherwise, animals belonging to a distinct type, 
 and introduced by man, would not succeed so 
 admirably even to the extermination of the 
 aborigines. On such grounds it does not seem 
 a necessary conclusion, that the extinction of 
 species, more than their creation, should exclu- 
 sively depend on the nature (altered by physical 
 changes) of their country." 3 In these passages 
 we have not only the assertion of species as are 
 established distinction in animal life, we have 
 also the further assertion that these "distinct 
 species," " with peculiar kinds of organization," 
 are to be attributed to " Creation " as their 
 cause, and not " to peculiarities of climate or 
 country." 
 
 1 " Narrative of the Surveying Voyages of H.M.'s Ships 
 Adventure and Beagle? London, 1839. Vol. iii. pp. 399, 400. 
 3 {bid., p. 212.
 
 4O Scientific Sophisms. 
 
 But in his later works, the theism thus articu- 
 lately pronounced is conspicuous chiefly by its 
 absence. At the same time it is not expressly 
 excluded. And on this account the agnostic 
 and atheistic leaders take him roundly to task, 
 notwithstanding his Abrahamk dignity. Thus, 
 for instance, Professor Tyndall : 
 
 "Diminishing gradually the number of pro- 
 genitors, Mr. Darwin comes at length to one 
 'primordial form;' but he does not say, as far 
 as I remember, how he supposes this form to 
 have been introduced. He quotes with satis- 
 faction the words of a celebrated author and 
 divine, who had ' gradually learnt to see that it 
 is just as noble a conception of the Deity to 
 believe He created a few original forms, capable 
 of self-development into other and needful 
 forms, as to believe that He required a fresh 
 act of creation to supply the voids caused by 
 the action of His laws.' What Mr. Darwin 
 thinks of this view of the introduction of life 
 I do not know. But the anthropomorphism, 
 which it seemed his object to set aside, is as 
 firmly associated with the creation of a few 
 forms as with the creation of a multitude. 
 We need clearness and thoroughness here. 
 Two courses and t\vo only are possible. Either 
 let us open our doors freely to the conception
 
 Evolution. 4 1 
 
 of creative acts, or, abandoning them, let us 
 radically change our notions of Matter." 1 
 
 Professor Tyndall, as is well known, adopts 
 the latter of these alternatives, and discerns in 
 Matter "the promise and potency of all terres- 
 trial life." 3 To do this, however, is, as he him- 
 self declares, to "abandon," once for all, "the 
 conception of creative acts." 
 
 Has Mr. Darwin abandoned that conception ? 
 If he has not, then he lacks " clearness and 
 thoroughness " " father of scientific men n 
 though he be. So, at least, says Professor 
 Tyndall, and Professor Huxley goes still further. 
 
 Mr. Huxley's utterances on this subject pos- 
 sess a special interest from the eulogy pro- 
 nounced on him as the accredited " expounder " 
 of the Darwinian doctrine. Thus, at Belfast, 
 when introducing his summary of " The Origin 
 of Species," Professor Tyndall said, 
 
 " The book was by no means an easy one ; 
 and probably not one in every score of those 
 who then attacked it had read its pages through, 
 or were competent to grasp its significance if 
 they had. I do not say this merely to discredit 
 them ; for there were in those days some really 
 
 1 " Address delivered before the British Association at 
 Belfast." Longmans, 1874, pp. 53, 54. 
 Ibid., p. 55.
 
 42 Scientific Sophisms. 
 
 eminent scientific men, entirely raised above 
 the heat of popular prejudice, willing to accept 
 any conclusion that science had to offer, pro- 
 vided it was duly backed by fact and argument, 
 and who entirely mistook Mr. Darwin's views. 
 In fact, the work needed an expounder ; and 
 it found one in Mr. Huxley. I know nothing 
 more admirable in the way of scientific exposi- 
 tion than those early articles of his on the origin 
 of species. He swept the curve of discussion 
 through the really significant points of the 
 subject, enriched his exposition with profound 
 original remarks and reflections, often summing 
 up in a single pithy sentence an argument 
 which a less compact mind would have spread 
 over pages." 1 
 
 Now the pithy sentence with which we are 
 here concerned is this : 
 
 " The improver of natural knowledge abso- 
 lutely refuses to acknowledge authority as such. 
 For him, scepticism is the highest of duties, 
 blind faith the one unpardonable sin. The man 
 of science has learned to believe in justification, 
 not by faith, but by verification." 8 
 
 And with this Professor Tyndall agrees: 
 "Without verification a theoretic conception is 
 
 1 " Address," ut snp., p. 38. 
 
 * "Lay Sermons." Macmillan, 1871, p. 18.
 
 Evolution. 43 
 
 a mere figment of the intellect." Torricelli, 
 Pascal, and Newton were distinguished by their 
 " welding of rigid logic to verifying fact." " If 
 scientific men were not accustomed to demand 
 verification . . . their science, instead of 
 being, as it is, a fortress of adamant, would be 
 a house of clay." " Newton's action in this 
 matter is the normal action of the scientific 
 mind." 1 " There is no genius so gifted as not 
 to need control and verification." * 
 
 What then becomes of "the Abraham .of 
 scientific men " ? In the " Origin of Species " 
 Mr. Darwin tells us repeatedly, 3 that it would 
 be " fatal " to his theory if it should be found 
 that there were characters or structures which 
 could not be accounted for by " numerous, 
 successive, slight modifications"; and tnis can- 
 did admission is supplemented in the "Descent 
 of Man," * by another equally candid : 
 
 1 " Fragments of Science." Longmans, 1871, pp. 59, 
 62. 
 
 2 Ibid., p. ill. 
 
 3 See especially, (First Edition,) p. 189, where, after 
 attempting to explain the origin of the eye, he says, " If 
 it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, 
 which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, 
 successive, slight modifications, my theory would abso- 
 lutely break down. 
 
 * Murray, 1871, vol. ii. p. 387.
 
 44 Scientific Sophisms. 
 
 " No doubt man, as well as every other 
 animal, presents structures which, as far as we 
 can judge with our little knowledge, are not 
 now of any service to him, nor have been so 
 during any former period of his existence, 
 either in relation to his general condition of 
 life, or of one sex to the other. Such struc- 
 tures cannot be accounted for by any form of 
 selection, or by the inherited effects of the use 
 and disuse of parts." 
 
 Here, then, we have the fullest recognition of 
 the validity of objections which are absolutely 
 fatal to his whole doctrine. But with this 
 recognition, what becomes of " verification " ? 
 
 Mr. Darwin's doctrine, however, constitutes a 
 very small part of that " theoretic conception " 
 which, under the name of Evolution, is now 
 declared by Professor Huxley to be no longer 
 "a matter of speculation and argument," but 
 on the contrary, has " become a matter of fact 
 and history." " The history of Evolution," he 
 adds, "as a matter of fact, is now distinctly 
 traceable. We know it has happened, and what 
 remains is the subordinate question of how it 
 happened." l 
 
 It is to be observed, however, that the " Evo- 
 
 1 " Address at Buffalo," August 25th. Reported in 
 The Times of Sept. 14, 1876.
 
 Evolution. 45 
 
 lution " of which Mr. Huxley makes this affirm- 
 ation, is something very different from the 
 indefinite nondescript which in popular writings 
 is often designated by the same term. Not 
 unfrequently " evolution " means simply pro- 
 gress or advancement. It is even used when 
 nothing more than growth is intended. It is 
 employed as if it were identical with " natural 
 selection," or " transmutation," or any other 
 mode of " development." But with Mr. Huxley, 
 evolution is something more than the emer- 
 gence of the chick from the egg, or the oak from 
 the acorn, or the frog from the tadpole. It is not 
 a mere increase of bulk, nor is it restricted to 
 any particular process, nor has it any special 
 aim. It is a change from simplicity to com- 
 plexity ; from incoherence and indefiniteness to 
 their opposites. 
 
 Thus, for instance, the nebular hypothesis 
 supposes the evolution of the planetary bodies 
 from incoherent atoms, which come not merely 
 into mutual relation, but which also in that 
 process become grouped together in such a way 
 that the nascent mass becomes complex, con- 
 sists of parts. Again : the homogeneous proto- 
 plasm in which all organized beings commence, 
 shows, when under favourable conditions, first 
 the elements of tissues. These elements are
 
 46 Scientific Sophisms. 
 
 afterwards grouped into tissues, and the tissues 
 are associated into organs. The "indifferent" 
 matter is differentiated in various degrees, and 
 the animal and vegetable series show many 
 grades of difference. 
 
 Thus .the Protamoeba never reaches to the 
 formation of tissues ; the Hydra has tissues, 
 but few organs ; and, ascending in the series, the 
 sharks, complex as is their organization, exhibit 
 a less thorough differentiation of their hard 
 parts, which are chiefly cartilaginous, than do 
 mammals, in which cartilage is subordinate to 
 bone. But the evolution of the more complex 
 from the more simple organisms does not neces- 
 sarily form a linear series ; probably it never 
 does so. Nor does evolution imply change of 
 matter as well as of the relations of its parts ; 
 fresh matter is not essential to it, since the 
 phenomena which it includes are, as matter of 
 fact, rearrangements of that which was already 
 existing. 
 
 Such are the principal facts regarding evolu- 
 tion ; and from these it is evident that the 
 phenomena themselves are absolutely indepen- 
 dent of any and of every theory as to their 
 cause. Thus understood and thus limited, 
 Evolution, i.e., the phenomenal sequence, not 
 the ideal hypothesis is a law the operation
 
 Evolution. 47 
 
 of which is traceable throughout every depart- 
 ment of nature. 
 
 Mr. Herbert Spencer's definition of it is 
 equally clear and concise : " Evolution is a 
 change from an indefinite, incoherent homo- 
 geneity, to a definite, coherent heterogeneity ; 
 through continuous differentiations and integra- 
 tions." ! 
 
 Its absolute universality of operation he thus 
 expresses : " Whether it be in the development 
 of the Earth, in the development of Life upon 
 its surface, in the development of Society, of 
 Government, of Manufactures, of Commerce, of 
 Language, of Literature, Science, Art, this same 
 advance from the simple to the complex, 
 through successive differentiations, holds uni- 
 formly. From the earliest traceable cosmical 
 changes down to the latest results of civilization, 
 we shall find that the transformation of the 
 homogeneous into the heterogeneous, is that in 
 which Evolution essentially consists." a 
 
 In this last sentence we have not merely 
 the " transformation " " in which evolution 
 essentially consists ; " we have also the assump- 
 
 1 " First Principles." Williams & Norgate, 1862, p. 
 216. A subsequent definition is given below. See 
 Appendix, Note B. 
 
 2 Ibid., pp. 148, 149.
 
 48 Scientific Sophisms. 
 
 tion that " the latest results of civilization M 
 have been evolved, in the way of necessary and 
 inevitable consequence, from " the earliest trace- 
 able cosmical changes." Human life, with all its 
 inexhaustible possibilities, has been evolved from 
 life infra-human. The life of the lower animals, 
 like that of plants, was in the first instance 
 evolved from non-living matter ; as that matter 
 itself was evolved from " cosmic vapour." 
 
 Professor Tyndall, as we have seen, tells us 
 that " the world even the clerical world has 
 for the most part settled down in the belief that 
 Mr. Darwin's book simply reflects the truth of 
 Nature : that we who are now ' foremost in the 
 files of time ' have come to the front through 
 almost endless stages of promotion from lower 
 to higher forms of life." l And again : 
 
 " It is now generally admitted that the man 
 of to-day is the child and product of incalcu- 
 lable antecedent time. His physical and intel- 
 lectual textures have been woven for him during 
 his passage through phases of history and forms 
 of existence which lead the mind back to an 
 abysmal past." 3 " If to any one of us were 
 given the privilege of looking back through the 
 
 1 " Science and Man." Fortnightly Review, voL xxii. 
 p. 61 1. 
 
 3 Ibid., p. 594.
 
 Evolution. 49 
 
 aeons across which life has crept towards its 
 present outcome, his vision would ultimately 
 reach a point when the progenitors of this 
 assembly could not be called human." 1 " No 
 one indeed doubts now that all the higher types 
 of life with which the earth teems have been- 
 developed by the patient process of evolution 
 from lower organisms, and in logical consis- 
 tency we are bound to trace back the series 
 to the simplest forms of protoplasm, which the 
 microscope reveals to us as living units. But 
 all this is but the outcome of life from life, and 
 leaves us without an approach to a solution of 
 the mighty question of the origin of life. There 
 was a time when the earth was a red-hot melted 
 globe, on which no life could exist. In course 
 of ages its surface cooled ; but, to quote the 
 words of one of our greatest savans, 'when it 
 first became fit for life there was no living thing 
 upon it.' How then are we to conceive the 
 origination of organized creatures ? " 3 
 
 Professor Huxley, propounding to the British 
 Association 3 the tenets of what he called his 
 
 1 " Science and Man." Fortnightly Review, vol. xxii. 
 p. 611. 
 
 * "The Germ Theory and Spontaneous Generation." 
 Contemporary Review, vol. xxix. pp. 901, 902. 
 
 3 In the Presidential Address for 1870.
 
 50 x Scientific Sophisms. 
 
 " philosophic faith " on this subject, has 
 answered this question with his characteristic 
 clearness of enunciation : 
 
 "If it were given me to look beyond the 
 abyss of geologically recorded time to the still 
 more remote period when the earth was passing 
 through physical and chemical conditions, which 
 it can no more see again than a man can recall 
 his infancy, I should expect to be a witness of 
 the evolution of living protoplasm from not 
 living matter." l 
 
 To the same effect, and not less articulately, 
 Professor Tyndall : 
 
 " The problem before us is, at all events, 
 capable of definite statement. We have on the 
 one hand strong grounds for concluding that- 
 the earth was once a molten mass. We now 
 find it not only swathed by an atmosphere and 
 covered by a sea, but also crowded with living 
 things. The question is, how were they intro- 
 duced ? The conclusion of science, 
 which recognises unbroken causal connection 
 between the past and the present, would un- 
 doubtedly be that the molten earth contained 
 within it the elements of life, which grouped 
 themselves into their present forms as the planet 
 cooled. The difficulty and reluctance encoun- 
 
 1 " Critiques and Addresses." Macmillan, 1 873, p. 239.
 
 Evolution. 5 1 
 
 tered by this conception, arise solely from the 
 fact that the theologic conception obtained a 
 prior footing in the human mind. Did the 
 latter depend upon reasoning alone, it could 
 not hold its ground for an hour against its 
 rival. . . . Were not man's origin im- 
 plicated, we should accept without a murmur 
 the derivation of animal and vegetable life from 
 what we call inorganic nature. The conclusion 
 of pure intellect points this way and no 
 other." * 
 
 In other words and to sum up all that has 
 been said in one short but authoritative sen- 
 tence " The doctrine of Evolution derives man 
 in his totality from the interaction of organism 
 and - environment through countless ages 
 past." 2 
 
 And this it does, whatever may become of 
 Darwinism. On this head, a* well as on the 
 illimitable sphere of its operation, we have the 
 final conclusion of Professor Huxley : 
 
 " But even leaving Mr. Darwin's views aside, 
 the whole analogy of natural operations furnishes 
 so complete and crushing an argument against 
 the intervention of any but what are termed 
 
 1 "Materialism and its Opponents." Fortnightly Re- 
 view, vol. xviii. pp. 596, 597. 
 
 2 Prof. Tyndall's " Belfast Address," p. 59.
 
 52 Scientific Sophisms. 
 
 secondary causes in the production of all the 
 phenomena of the universe ; that in view of the 
 intimate relations between Man and the rest of 
 the liv.ng world ; and between the forces exerted 
 by the latter and all other torces, I can see no 
 excuse for doubting that all are co-ordinated 
 terms o Nature's great progression, from the 
 lOrmless to the formed, from the inorganic to 
 the organic, .rom Lhnd force to conscious in- 
 tellect and will." ! 
 
 "Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature." Williams 
 and Norgate, 1803, p. 108.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 "A PUERILE HYPOTHESIS" 
 
 THIS, then, is Evolution: "baldest of all the 
 philosophies which have sprung up in our 
 world." The evolution which solves the pro- 
 blem of human origin by the assumption that 
 human nature exists potentially in mere inor- 
 ganic matter ; and the assertion that man, with 
 all his powers, and all their products, is the 
 necessary result, by spontaneous derivation, of 
 the interaction of incandescent molecules. 
 
 But is this evolution scientific ? Is it demon- 
 strable ? Is it true ? Before this question its 
 assumptions cannot save it, however large ; its 
 assertions cannot prove it, however loud. The 
 question lies deeper. Has it received the neces- 
 sary "verification ?" The "verification" without 
 which, however ingenious as a theoretic con- 
 ception, it must ever remain " a mere figment of 
 the intellect?" 1 
 
 1 Prof. TyndalPs " Fragments of Science," p. 469.
 
 54 Scientific Sophisms. 
 
 To this question the answer is both unambi- 
 guous and conclusive. To present it the more 
 clearly, let us take separately the two points 
 involved. First, what is the evidence for the 
 succession of life from lower to higher forms ? 
 And second, what is the evidence as to the 
 existence of any instance of the conversion or 
 transmutation of one species into another ? 
 
 Let Professor Huxley answer. For we shall 
 find no witness more competent than he ; none 
 whose authority in all matters of natural history 
 and palaeontology is more indisputable ; none 
 more illustrious in his championship of Evolu- 
 tion in general, or of Mr. Darwin's views in par- 
 ticular. " There is but one hypothesis," he tells 
 us, " as to the origin of species of animals in 
 general which has any scientific existence that 
 propounded by Mr. Darwin." l Testimony from 
 that quarter, therefore, cannot fail to have a 
 special force. And on the first part of the 
 question Professor Huxley writes thus : 
 
 " What, then, does an impartial survey of the positively 
 ascertained truths of palaeontology testify in relation to 
 the common doctrines of progressive modification, which 
 suppose that modification to have taken place by a neces- 
 sary progress from more to less embryonic forms, or from 
 
 f " Man's Place in Nature," p. 106.
 
 "A Puerile Hypothesis" 55 
 
 more to less generalized types, within the limits of the 
 period represented by the fossiliferous rocks ? 
 
 "It negatives those doctrines, for it either shows us no 
 evidence of such modification, or demonstrates such mo- 
 dification as has occurred to have been very slight ; and 
 as to the nature of that modification, it yields no evidence 
 whatsoever that the earlier members of any long-continued 
 group were more generalized in structure than the later 
 ones. . . . 
 
 " Contrariwise, any admissible hypothesis of progres- 
 sive modification must be compatible with persistence 
 without progression through indefinite periods." J 
 
 In other words, the " hypothesis " requires 
 some proof of " progressive modification," but it 
 receives none. What it does receive is disproof 
 only. To its demand for " progression," " the 
 fossiliferous rocks " reply by exhibiting only 
 " persistence without progression ; " and that, 
 " through indefinite periods." To its assump- 
 tion of " almost endless stages of promotion 
 from lower to higher forms ^ofLIife 7 " 2 Palaeon- 
 tology responds by demonstrating that of these 
 " stages " there is " no evidence," and of this 
 "promotion " there is " no evidence whatsoever." 
 
 Nor does Professor Huxley stop here. Deal- 
 ing with the supposition that such a hypothesis 
 as that of progressive modification should "even- 
 
 1 " On Persistent Types of Life : " in " Lay Sermons," 
 p. 225. 
 
 8 Prof. Tyndall's " Science and Man."
 
 5 6 Scientific Sophisms. 
 
 tually be proved to be. true," he makes the im- 
 portant statement that the only way in which it 
 can be demonstrated will be " by observation 
 and experiment upon the existing forms of life." 1 
 But demonstration of this kind is non-existent. 
 Abundantly and incessantly as it has been at- 
 tempted, it has never yet been achieved. Tried 
 by this test of " observation and experiment 
 upon the existing forms of life," neither Organic 
 Evolution in general nor Mr. Darwin's " Origin 
 of Species " in particular, has any actual place 
 in rerum naturd. 
 
 On the second part of the question that 
 of the transmutation of species Mr. Huxley 
 writes : 
 
 "After much consideration, and with assuredly 
 no bias against Mr. Darwin's views, it is our 
 clear conviction that, as the evidence stands, it 
 is not absolutely proven that a group of animals, 
 having all the characters exhibited by species 
 in nature, has ever been originated by selection, 
 whether artificial or natural." 2 And again : 
 
 " Our acceptance of the Darwinian hypothesis 
 must be provisional so long as one link in the 
 chain of evidence is wanting ; and so long as all 
 the animals and plants certainly produced by 
 
 1 " Lay Sermons," p. 226. 
 * Ibid., p. 295. "
 
 "A Puerile Hypothesis." 57 
 
 selective breeding from a common stock are 
 fertile with one another, that link will be 
 wanting." x 
 
 "On a general survey of the theory," says 
 Dr. Elam, 2 "nothing strikes us more forcibly 
 than the total absence of direct evidence of any 
 one of the steps. No one professes to have ever 
 seen a variety (producing fertile offspring with 
 other varieties) become a species (producing no 
 offspring, or no fertile offspring, with the origi- 
 nal stock). No one knows of any living or any 
 extinct species having given origin to any other, 
 at once or gradually. Not one instance is ad- 
 duced of any variety having ever arisen which 
 did actually give its possessor, individually, any 
 advantage in the struggle for life. Not one in- 
 stance is recorded of any given variety having 
 been actually selected for preservation,- whilst its 
 allies became extinct. There is an abundance 
 
 1 "Man's Place in Nature," p. 107. 
 
 2 "Automatism and Evolution." Contemporary Review, 
 vol. xxix. p. 131. [In gratefully acknowledging my in- 
 debtedness to the series of papers of which this is the 
 third (for the first and second, see Contemporary Review, 
 vol. xxviii. pp. 537 and 725), perhaps I may be per- 
 mitted to say that, by their fairness and forcefulness, 
 their clearness and conclusiveness, their breadth of range 
 and their minuteness of detail, Dr. Elam has laid a large 
 circle of readers under lasting obligations.]^
 
 5-S Scientific Sophisms. 
 
 of semi-acute reasoning upon what might pos- 
 sibly have occurred, under conditions which 
 seem never to have been fulfilled ; " but of direct 
 and positive testimony, whether derived from 
 the experience of mankind or from the geolo- 
 gical record, there is no fragment whatever. 
 
 Mr. Darwin himself, as shown above, 1 ' is so 
 far from pretending that his theory has re- 
 ceived any "verification," as to acknowledge, 
 with characteristic candour, that in the existence 
 of structures which "cannot be accounted for 
 by any form of selection," 2 we have an objection 
 which is " fatal " to that theory. And even in 
 the case of other objections not thus pronounced 
 absolutely "fatal" in form, his admissions are 
 such as to show that they are fatal in fact. 
 Thus, for instance, the absence of transitional 
 forms between different species has always been 
 recognised as a serious difficulty ; and Mr. Dar- 
 win, in the attempt to obviate it, succeeds only 
 in showing how very serious it is. These are his 
 words : 
 
 " Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely 
 graduated organic chain ; and this, perhaps, is the most 
 obvious and gravest objection which can be urged against 
 
 1 Anle, p. 23. 
 
 * "Descent of Man," vol. ii. p. 387.
 
 "A Puerile Hypothesis" 59 
 
 my theory. The explanation lies, as I believe, in the 
 extreme imperfection of the geological record." * 
 
 But " the extreme imperfection of the geo- 
 logical record" here hypothecated by way of 
 "explanation," is so far from being a scientific 
 fact, that it was never imagined even by Mr. 
 Darwin himself until he perceived that unless it 
 were assumed, " the testimony of the rocks," 
 not less than that of the " structures " presented 
 by " man, as well as every other animal," would 
 be " fatal " to his theory. 
 
 " I do not pretend that I should ever have suspected 
 how poor a record of the mutations of life the best pre- 
 served geological section presented, had not the difficulty 
 of our not discovering innumerable transitional links 
 between the species which appeared at the commence- 
 ment and close of each formation, pressed so hardly on my 
 theory." 2 And again : " He who rejects these views on 
 the nature 3 of the geological record, will rightly reject my 
 whole theory." 4 
 
 On Mr. Darwin's own showing therefore, cadit 
 qucsstio. " These views " of his are to be re- 
 jected as unscientific, because they are unveri- 
 
 i Origin of Species." Murray, 1859, p. 280. 
 
 * Ibid., p. 302. 
 
 * i.e., the alleged " extreme imperfection." 
 
 * " Origin of Species," p. 342.
 
 60 Scientific Sophisms. 
 
 fied. They are at best " a mere figment of the 
 intellect." And their rejection involves the re- 
 jection of his "whole theory." 
 
 Jt is therefore no matter for surprise that a 
 competent authority like Mr. St. George Mivart 
 should conclude his exhaustive examination 
 with these weighty words : 
 
 "With regard to the conception as now put 
 forward 'by Mr. Darwin, I cannot truly charac- 
 terize it but by an epithet which I employ only 
 with much reluctance. I weigh my words, and 
 have present to my mind the many distin- 
 guished naturalists who have accepted the 
 notion, and yet I cannot hesitate to call it a 
 'puerile hypothesis' " * * . 
 
 Mr. Mivart's judgments need no endorsement 
 here ; but those who are most conversant with 
 the highly cultivated critical faculty, the pro- 
 found knowledge of natural history and of 
 biological science which in his " Genesis of 
 Species," and afterwards, in his " Lessons from 
 Nature," he has brought to the refutation of 
 Mr. Darwin's .doctrine of Natural Selection, 
 will be the first to adopt and to reiterate this, 
 
 1 " Lessons from Nature, as manifested in Mind and 
 Matter." By St. George Mivart, Ph.D., F.R.S., etc. 
 London: Murray, 1876. Chap. ix. p. 300. (* This em- 
 phasis of italics is Mr. Mivart's.)
 
 "A Puerile Hypothesis? 61 
 
 his latest verdict. That doctrine lacks even the 
 ordinary respectability of "a mere figment of 
 the intellect." It is not merely fictitious, it is 
 discreditable : a "puerile hypotliesis?
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 SCIENTIFIC LEVITY? 
 
 AGNOSTIC Evolution, then, is merely an unveri- 
 fied hypothesis. And it is based on two sub- 
 ordinate hypotheses, equally unverified. And 
 in relation to it, these last are so essentially 
 necessary, so absolutely fundamental, that if 
 either of them be invalidated the entire super- 
 structure falls to the ground. The Evolution 
 here controverted, has no existence whatever, 
 has even no theoretical existence, apart from 
 these two postulates: (i) "Spontaneous Gene- 
 ration"; and (2) "Transmutation of Species." 
 Without the first, it would be destitute of its 
 starting-point, the " primordial form." Without 
 the second, it would still be destitute, on agnos- 
 tic principles, of all other forms than one. 
 
 " Transmutation of Species," however, though 
 reserved for further examination below, may for 
 the present be dismissed, on the high authority 
 of Professor Mivart, as a " puerile hypothesis." 
 But when, on scientific grounds, we proceed to
 
 Scientific Sophisms. 63 
 
 enquire as to the amount and character of 
 evidence produced or producible, in favour of 
 " Spontaneous Generation," we are compelled 
 to regard it as a hypothesis still more puerile. 
 
 Speaking of evolution at large, and in com- 
 prehensive terms, Professor Whewell justly 
 says, " The system ought to be described as a 
 System of Order in which life grows out of dead 
 matter, the higher out of tJte lower animals, and 
 man out of brutes" * 
 
 To begin then at the beginning. Is "The 
 System," in its first postulate, true or false ? Is 
 it matter of fact, or merely matter of fiction ? 
 Does "life grow out of dead matter?" 
 
 Let us give the place of honour to "the 
 Abraham of scientific men." Mr. Darwin, writ- 
 ing to the Athenceum, says "I hope you will 
 permit me to add a few remarks on Heterogeny, 
 as the old doctrine of spontaneous generation 
 is now called, to those given by Dr. Carpenter, 
 who, however, is probably better fitted to dis- 
 cuss the question than any other man in Eng- 
 land. Your reviewer believes that certain lowly 
 organized animals have been generated spon- 
 taneously that is, without pre-existing parents 
 during each geological period in slimy ooze. 
 A mass of mud with matter decaying and under- 
 
 1 Whewell's " Indications." Second Edition, p. 12.
 
 64 " Scientific Levity" 
 
 going complex chemical changes is a fui<; 
 hiding-place for obscurity of ideas. But let us 
 face the problem boldly. He who believes that 
 organic beings have been produced during each 
 geological period from dead matter, must believe 
 that the first being thus arose. There must 
 have been a time when inorganic elements alone 
 existed in our planet : let any assumptions be 
 made, such as that the reeking atmosphere was 
 charged with carbonic acid, nitrogenized com- 
 pounds, phosphorus, etc. Now is there a fact, 
 or a shadow of a fact, supporting the belief 
 that these elements, without the presence of any 
 organic compounds, and acted on only by known 
 forces, could produce a living creature ? At 
 present, it is to us a result absolutely incon- 
 ceivable." l 
 
 Dr. Carpenter had previously written thus : 
 " If your reviewer prefers to suppose that new 
 types of Foraminifera originate from time to 
 time out of the ' ooze/ under the influence of 
 ' polar forces,' he has, of course, a right to his 
 opinion ; though by most naturalists such 
 ' spontaneous generation ' of rotalines and num- 
 mulites will be regarded as a far more ' astound- 
 ing hypothesis ' than the one for which it is 
 offered as a substitute. But I hold that mine 
 1 The Athenceum for 1863, p. 554. 
 
 E
 
 Scientific Sophisms. 65 
 
 is the more scientific, as being conformable to 
 the fact . . . ; whilst his is not supported 
 by any evidence that rotalines or nummulites 
 ever originate spontaneously, either in ' ooze ' or 
 anywhere else." l 
 
 " Spontaneous generation " therefore, so far 
 from being a scientific verity, is pronounced 
 by the highest authority in England to be an 
 "astounding hypothesis," " not supported by 
 any evidence " ; while the scientific Abraham 
 declares it to be " absolutely inconceivable." 
 
 " What displeases me in Strauss," says Hum- 
 boldt, " is the scientific levity which leads him 
 to see no difficulty in the organic springing from 
 the inorganic, nay, man himself from Chaldean 
 mud." 3 
 
 But how ? The modus operandi: what was 
 that ? For answer we must turn first of alt to a 
 work which has at least the distinction of having 
 obtained honourable mention by Prof. Tyndall. 
 In the Belfast Address 3 we read of " the cele- 
 brated Lamarck, who produced so profound an 
 impression on the public mind through the 
 vigorous exposition of his views by the author 
 of the ' Vestiges of Creation.' " Turning then 
 
 1 The Athenaum for 1863, p. 461. 
 
 8 " Letters to Varnhagen." First Edition, p. 117. 
 
 P. 37-
 
 66 "Scientific Levity" 
 
 to this " vigorous exposition " we find that the 
 transition was effected by means of a " nucleated 
 vesicle." This " nucleated vesicle," the funda- 
 mental form of all organisation, we must regard 
 as "the meeting-point between the inorganic 
 and the organic the end of the mineral and 
 the beginning of the vegetable and animal king- 
 doms, which thence start in different directions, 
 but in a general parallelism and analogy." 
 
 Nor is this all. For " this nucleated vesicle is 
 itself a type of mature and independent being 
 in the infusory animalcules, as well as the start- 
 ing-point in the foetal progress of every higher 
 individual in creation, both animal and veget- 
 able." 
 
 What then? Granting all that is here as- 
 sumed, we are as far as ever from a solution of 
 the problem proposed. That problem is, to 
 show the course of " Nature's great progression," 
 as asserted, "from the formless to the formed, 
 from the inorganic to the organic." But to be- 
 gin with -the nucleated vesicle as "the funda- 
 mental form of all organisation," is to begin, 
 not at the beginning, but at the end. " The 
 starting-point" here alleged, is on the wrong 
 side the gulf. We want to know how it was 
 reached. We want to see, not the first thing 
 " formed," but the bridge that spans the chasm
 
 Scientific Sophisms. 67 
 
 for the " great progression " from the formless ; 
 not the first thing that lived, but the " evolu- 
 tion " of "life " from "not living matter." 
 
 But to satisfy this demand is, as we have seen, 
 impossible, since the " evolution " required is 
 not only non-existent, but is pronounced by Mr. 
 Darwin himself to be "absolutely inconceivable." 
 What then is to be done ? Nothing is more 
 simple. The demand that cannot be met must 
 be evaded ; and we are accordingly asked to 
 believe that the nucleated vesicle " is a form of 
 being which there is some reason to believe 
 electric agency will produce though not per- 
 haps usher into full life in albumen, one of 
 those component materials of animal bodies, 
 in whose combination it is believed there is no 
 chemical peculiarity forbidding their being any 
 day realized in the laboratory. Remembering 
 these things," proceeds the writer, " we are drawn 
 on to the supposition that the first step in the 
 creation of life upon this planet was a chemico- 
 electric operation, by which simple germinal 
 vesicles were produced." 
 
 Observe here, not the reasoning, but the un- 
 reason. The premiss, " There is some reason 
 to believe." The conclusion, a " supposition." 
 There is some reason to believe that " electric 
 agency will produce " something not alive.
 
 68 "Scientific Levity? 
 
 Ergo, " a chemico-electric operation " was " the 
 first step in the creation of life ! " 
 
 But had not Prevost and Dumas previously 
 announced that " globules could be produced in 
 albumen by electricity " ? Quite true : but the 
 support which the author's " supposition " was 
 supposed to receive from that announcement 
 fails at once before the remark that, " if his theory 
 had been that the first step in the process of 
 creation was the formation of vesicles by the 
 wind passing over the ocean, then the fact of 
 boys blowing bubbles in soap and water with a 
 tobacco pipe, and the fable of Venus being 
 born of the froth of the sea would have been as 
 much to his purpose." 
 
 From the author of the " Vestiges " we turn 
 to his eulogist, Professor Tyndall : 
 
 " If you ask me whether there exists the least evidence 
 to prove that any form of life can be developed out of 
 matter, without demonstrable antecedent life, my reply is 
 that evidence considered perfectly conclusive by many 
 has been adduced ; and that were some of us who have 
 pondered this question to follow a very common example, 
 and accept testimony because it falls in with our belief, 
 we also should eagerly close with the evidence referred 
 to. But there is in the true man of science a wish 
 stronger than the wish to have his beliefs upheld ; 
 namely, the wish to have them true. And this stronger 
 wish causes him to reject the most plausible support if he 
 has reason to suspect that it is vitiated by error. Those
 
 Scientific Sophisms. 69 
 
 to whom I refer as having studied this question, believing 
 the evidence offered in favour of ' spontaneous genera- 
 tion ' to be thus vitiated cannot accept it. They know 
 full well that the chemist now prepares from inorganic 
 matter a vast array of substances which were some time 
 ago regarded as the sole products of vitality. They are in- 
 timately acquainted with the structural power of matter as 
 evidenced in the phenomena of crystallization. They can 
 justify scientifically their belief in its potency, under the 
 proper conditions, to produce organisms. But in reply 
 to your question they would frankly admit their inability 
 to point to any satisfactory experimental proof that life 
 can be developed save from demonstrable antecedent 
 life. As already indicated, they draw the line from the 
 highest organisms through lower ones down to the lowest, 
 and it is the prolongation of this line by the intellect 
 beyond the range of the senses that leads them to the 
 conclusion which Bruno so boldly enunciated." * 
 
 Reserving, for the present, all consideration of 
 the other important admissions in this remark- 
 able paragraph, it is- sufficient to note here the 
 distinctly decisive answer which it furnishes to 
 the question before us. " The evidence offered 
 in favour of 'spontaneous generation'" is "viti- 
 ated by error." There is no "satisfactory ex- 
 perimental proof," nor even does there exist 
 " the least evidence to prove that any form of 
 life can be developed out of matter, without 
 demonstrable antecedent life." 
 
 With this avowal of Professor Tyndall as 
 
 1 " Belfast Address," pp. 55, 56.
 
 7 "Scientific Levity'' 
 
 .well as with the preceding passage from the 
 "Vestiges," it is instructive to compare the 
 carefully constructed sentences so reticent, so 
 politic of Mr. Herbert Spencer : 
 
 " The chasm," he tells us, " between the in- 
 organic and the organic is being filled up. On 
 the one hand, some four or five thousand com- 
 pounds, once regarded as exclusively organic, 
 have now been produced artificially from inor- 
 ganic matter ; and chemists do not doubt their 
 ability so to produce the highest forms of 
 organic matter. On the other hand, the micro- 
 scope has traced down organisms to simpler 
 and simpler forms, until in the Protogenes of 
 Professor Haeckel, there has been reached a 
 type distinguishable from a fragment of albu- 
 men only by its finely granular character." 1 
 
 On which Dr. Elam pertinently asks, " Does 
 not every candid observer know that this said 
 ' chasm ' is not in any way ' being filled up ; ' 
 and that the chemist could quite as easily con- 
 struct a full-grown ostrich, as this despised bit 
 of finely granulated albumen ? " As for the 
 " four or five thousand compounds," as well 
 might the goldsmith say that he did not 
 " doubt his ability " to make gold out of a 
 
 1 " Principles of Psychology " (Stereotyped Edition), 
 voL i. p. 137.
 
 Scientific Sophisms. 7 l 
 
 baser metal, because he had already moulded 
 it and coloured it in four or five thousand differ- 
 ent fashions. It is riot in any sense true that 
 any substance even distantly resembling or- 
 ganizable matter has been formed. The line 
 of demarcation between the organic and the 
 inorganic is as wide as ever. For what are 
 these " organic " matters said to have been 
 formed from their elements ? They are chiefly 
 binary and ternary compounds ; certain acids 
 of the compound radical class, some alcohols, 
 ethers, and the like. Not one of them bears 
 the most remote resemblance to anything that 
 can live. Few of them contain nitrogen, and 
 these few, chiefly amides, are only combinations 
 of ammonia or ammonium with other binary 
 or ternary compounds, and can only by courtesy 
 or convention be allowed to be of " organic " 
 nature. Neither chemically nor physically are 
 they in any way allied to matter possessing the 
 capacity of life. " One least particle of albu- 
 men, granulated or not granulated, would be 
 an answer a thousandfold more crushing to the 
 opponents of Evolution than myriads of such 
 compounds." 
 
 It is now thirty-five years since the author of 
 the " Vestiges," in his " vigorous exposition," 
 enunciated the "belief" that "albumen"
 
 72 "Scientific Levity". 
 
 might be " any day realized in the laboratory ; " 
 and that there was "no chemical peculiarity for- 
 bidding" that realization. In those thirty-five 
 years scientific chemistry has advanced, with 
 colossal strides, at a rate of progress previcusly 
 unknown and unimagined. Its triumphs are 
 attested by the number and character of its 
 investigations, its improved methods, its en- 
 larged nomenclature, its ever-increasing wealth 
 of results. Its history during the present cen- 
 tury presents a continuous series of remarkable 
 discoveries : the number of non-metallic ele- 
 ments has been increased by the addition of 
 iodine, bromine, and selenium ; that of the 
 metals has been nearly doubled ; the carefully 
 examined compounds have increased a hundred- 
 fold ; "a vast array of substances" has been 
 compounded or decompounded ; but, towards 
 that border-land which separates the organic 
 from the inorganic if such a border-land there 
 be this triumphant chemistry has not advanced 
 one single step. " Chemists/' we are told, " do 
 not doubt their ability " to do that which has 
 hitherto mocked all their efforts. Thirty-five 
 years ago they were equally untroubled by 
 doubt, and equally destitute of achievement. 
 They then believed the great desideratum 
 might be " any day realized in the laboratory."
 
 Scientific Sophisms. 73 
 
 And they "do not doubt" it now. But still 
 they do not " realize " it. They have not " the 
 least evidence " in support of their belief : they 
 have still less of " satisfactory experimental 
 proof." 
 
 But who is this "they"? It is not the 
 chemist : it is the " philosopher." The chemist 
 knows better. He knows that notwithstanding 
 an altered classification of " organic " and " in- 
 organic," yet between his compounds on the 
 one hand, and the construction of organizable 
 matter on the other, there still stands the 
 impassable barrier which demonstrates that 
 the affinities of life and living matter belong 
 to a chemistry of which we know nothing, and 
 which, to strive to imitate is but to strive in 
 vain. 
 
 The name of Dr. Rudolf Virchow has been 
 familiar to scientific Europe for nearly forty 
 years, as one honoured amongst the most 
 honourable. It was he who, at the Conference 
 of the Association of German Naturalists and 
 Physicians at Munich, in the autumn of 1877, 
 led the reaction in the high places of learning 
 against the dogmatism of science. And this 
 is what he says on the " scientific levity " of 
 " spontaneous generation " : 
 
 " I grant that if any one is determined
 
 74 "Scientific Levity? 
 
 to form for himself an idea of how the first 
 organic being could have come into exis- 
 tence, of itself, nothing further is left than to 
 go back to spontaneous generation. . . . 
 But of this we do not possess any actual 
 proof. No one has ever seen a gemratio 
 tzquivoca really effected ; and whoever supposes 
 that it has occurred is contradicted by the 
 naturalist, and not merely by the theologian. 
 . . . If it were capable of proof, it would 
 indeed be beautiful ! But whoever 
 
 recalls to mind the lamentable failure of all 
 the attempts made very recently to discover 
 a decided support for the generatio (zquivoca in 
 the lower forms of transition from the inor- 
 ganic to the organic world, will feel it doubly 
 serious to demand that this theory, so utterly 
 discredited, should be in any way accepted as 
 the basis of all our views of life." * 
 
 An " astounding hypothesis," " not supported 
 by any evidence," 2 " absolutely inconceivable," 8 
 and " utterly discredited. " * Such is the 
 " scientific levity " of Spontaneous Generation. 
 
 1 "The Freedom of Science in the Modern State," 
 
 P-39- 
 
 * Dr. Carpenter, ut sup. 
 
 * Mr. Darwin. 
 
 * Dr. Virchow.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 A HOUSE OF CARDS. 
 
 " SPONTANEOUS Generation " therefore, not 
 less than " Transmutation of Species," is merely 
 " a puerile hypothesis." But on these two 
 dogmas the theory of agnostic Evolution is 
 absolutely dependent By means of the sup- 
 port derived from them if only they them- 
 selves could have been made to stand it might 
 have stood ; but with their fall, it also comes 
 to the ground. Its relation to them renders its 
 fate inevitable. The instability of the super- 
 structure is inseparably concomitant with the 
 insecurity of the foundation. 
 
 Nor is this all. Fate is involved in charac- 
 ter: and when we proceed to examine the 
 character of this theory, we are at no loss to 
 discover the cause of its fate. 
 
 If the doctrine of agnostic Evolution were 
 scientifically true, it could not fail to command 
 the universal assent of scientific men ; whereas 
 now, on the contrary, it is notorious that
 
 76 Scientific Sophisms. 
 
 among the ranks of those most eminent for 
 scientific attainment there are not wanting ear- 
 nest and enlightened seekers after truth, who 
 have not only refused to accept this new doc- 
 trine with its " logical consequences," but who 
 have based their refusal on this explicit ground, 
 that agnostic Evolution is " nothing more than 
 a flimsy framework of hypothesis constructed 
 upon imaginary or irrelevant facts, with a com- 
 plete departure from every established canon of 
 scientific investigation." 
 
 In his Review of Professor Haeckel's 
 " Natural History of Creation," or, as he would 
 prefer to call it, " The History of the Develop- 
 ment or Evolution 01 Nature," Professor Hux- 
 ley has expressly formulated " the fundamen- 
 tal proposition of Evolution." " That proposi- 
 tion is," he tells us, " that the whole world, 
 living and not living, is the result of the 
 mutual interaction, according to definite laws, 
 of the forces possessed by the molecules of 
 which the primitive nebulosity of the universe 
 was composed." J And he adds, " If this be 
 true, it is no less certain that the existing 
 world lay potentially in the cosmic vapour." 
 
 In this, of course, he agrees with Haeckel, by 
 
 1 " Critiques and Addresses," Macmillan, 1873 (xii. 
 " The Genealogy of Animals "), p. 305.
 
 A House of Cards. 77 
 
 whom "full justice is done to Kant, as the 
 originator of that 'cosmic gas theory/ as the 
 Germans somewhat quaintly call it, which is 
 commonly ascribed to Laplace." l 
 
 Professor Tyndall agrees with both. Having 
 discerned in " Matter " " the promise and potency 
 of all terrestial life," 3 he lays it down as funda- 
 mental that " the doctrine of evolution derives 
 man in his totality from the interaction of organ- 
 ism and environment through countless ages 
 past" 8 By that " vision of the mind," which, 
 as he tells us, " authoritatively supplements 
 the vision of the eye," 4 he sees " the cosmic 
 vapour " as a primitive " nebular haze " (the 
 " universal fire-mist " of the " Vestiges "), gradu- 
 ally cooling, and contracting as it cooled, into a 
 " molten mass," in which " latent and potential " 
 were not only "life" before it was alive, and 
 M form " before it was formed, ;-"" not alone the 
 exquisite and wonderful mechanism of the 
 human body, but the human mind itself; 
 emotion, intellect, will, and all their phenomena 
 ... all our philosophy, all our poetry, all 
 
 1 "Critiques and Addresses," Macmillan, 1873 (*& 
 " The Genealogy of Animals "), p. 304. 
 8 " Belfast Address," p. 55. 
 Ibid., p. 59. 
 Ibid., p. 55. 
 
 F
 
 78 Scientific Sophisms. 
 
 our science, and all our art Plato, Shakespeare, 
 Newton, Raphael." All that has been ; all that 
 is ; nay even all that is imagined only ; was 
 once, to the scientific eye, "in a fine frenzy 
 rolling," "potential in the fires of the sun ;" 1 
 just as those fires themselves had no existence 
 (other than " latent and potential ") until they 
 were kindled by the condensation of " the 
 cosmic vapour." 
 
 These quotations, and such as these for they 
 might be indefinitely extended enable us to 
 sum up the doctrine of Agnostic Evolution in 
 two short propositions : 
 
 First, " That the earliest organisms were the 
 natural product of the interaction of ordinary 
 inorganic matter and force." 
 
 Second, "That all the forms of animal and 
 vegetable life, including man himself, with all 
 his special and distinctive faculties, have been 
 slowly, but successively and gradually developed 
 from the earliest and simplest organisms." 
 
 But when we proceed to examine the 
 scientific pretensions of the theory thus suc- 
 cinctly stated, we find, on Professor Tyndall's 
 own showing, that they are worthless. Worth- 
 less, because unverified, and incapable of veri- 
 fication. "The strength of the doctrine of 
 
 1 " Scientific Use of the Imagination," p. 453. 
 I
 
 A House of Cards. 79 
 
 evolution consists/' he tells us, "not in an 
 experimental demonstration (for the subject is 
 hardly accessible to this mode of proof), but in 
 its general harmony with scientific thought." l 
 " Scientific thought," however, can only mean 
 "the aggregate thoughts of scientific men;" 
 and with these thoughts it is most certain that 
 this doctrine of Evolution is not in harmony. 
 Mr. Darwin, with his usual candour, writes as 
 recently as 1871, "Of the older and honoured 
 chiefs in natural science, many unfortunately 
 are still opposed to Evolution in every form." * 
 Since that date it is certain that, on the con- 
 tinent at least, the doctrine has been met by 
 many distinguished botanists and zoologists with 
 growing disfavour. To the same purpose is 
 the still more recent admission of Professor 
 Tyndall : " Our foes are to some extent they 
 of our own household, including not only the 
 ignorant and the passionate, but a minority 
 of minds of high calibre and culture, lovers of 
 freedom, moreover, who, though its objective 
 hull be riddled by logic, still find the ethic life 
 of their religion unimpaired." 3 
 
 But even if this were not the case, it would 
 
 1 " Belfast Address," p. 58. 
 
 * " Descent of Man," p. 2. 
 
 * "Materialism and its Opponents," ut sup. t p. 597.
 
 8o Scientific Sophisms. 
 
 still be true, on Professor Tyndall's showing, 
 that Evolution as above defined has not been 
 " verified " " by observation and experiment ; " 
 and that " without verification a theoretic con- 
 ception is a mere figment of the intellect" * 
 "Those who hold the doctrine of evolution," 
 he tells us, " are by no means ignorant of the 
 uncertainty of their data, and they only yield 
 to it a provisional assent They regard the ne- 
 bular hypothesis as probable, . . . and accept 
 as probable the unbroken sequence of develop- 
 ment from the nebula to the present time." * 
 
 "Probable," "provisional," "uncertain," and 
 therefore " unscientific ; " this, on the highest 
 authority, is thus admitted to be the actual 
 character of " the doctrine of Evolution." But 
 of what kind is this probability ? When ex- 
 amined, it appears that even the alleged prob- 
 ability itself is at best a mere " supposition," " a 
 theoretic conception," a probability hypothet- 
 ical only, nothing more. 
 
 For example : Mr. Herbert Spencer tells us 
 that "there is reason to suspect that there is 
 but one ultimate form of Matter, out of which 
 the successively more complex forms of Matter 
 
 1 " Fragments of Science," p. 469. 
 
 * u Scientific Use of the Imagination," p. 456.
 
 A House of Cards. 81 
 
 are built up." 1 When we ask for the reason 
 for this assertion, we are merely told that there 
 is "reason to suspect" so, and that "by the 
 different grouping of units, and by the com- 
 bination of the unlike groups each with its 
 own kind, and each with other kinds, it is 
 supposed that there have been produced the 
 kinds of matter we call elementary." 3 But, 
 for anything that appears to the contrary, the 
 " reason to suppose " all this, and the subsequent 
 supposing of it, exist only in Mr. Spencer's 
 own mind, and have their raison d'etre in the 
 exigencies of the " constructive philosophy." 
 Having however in this way " supposed " what- 
 ever he pleased, and having also justified his 
 method of procedure by saying that there was 
 " reason to suppose " so, he then in the very 
 next paragraph, and without adducing any 
 proof whatever, proceeds to treat these sup- 
 positions as if they were ascertained facts, and 
 builds on them as if he took them for solid 
 foundations. Thus : " If then, WE SEE (!) that 
 by unlike arrangements of like units, all the 
 forms of matter, apparently so diverse in nature 
 may be produced," etc. etc. 3 
 
 1 "Principles of Psychology." Stereotyped Edition. 
 Williams & Norgate, 1870, vol. i. p. 155. 
 2 Ibid. Ibid.
 
 82 Scientific Sophisms. 
 
 But this method of evolving science from 
 supposition, and conjuring with conjecture for 
 certainty, is by no means a monopoly of Mr. 
 Herbert Spencer. In one sentence of his Essay 
 on " Scientific Materialism," Professor Tyndall 
 states that " we should on philosophic grounds 
 expect to find" certain physical conditions; and 
 in the next, he commences an induction, from this 
 mere expectation, with the phrase, " The relation 
 of physics to consciousness being thus invari- 
 able " ! 1 a relation which, if it exists at all, does 
 certainly not exist in any demonstrable form 
 so far is it from " being thus," or being in any 
 way other than that of " expectation " merely, 
 " invariable." 
 
 Similarly, when, in his controversy with Mr. 
 Martineau, he claims "consciousness" for the 
 fern and the oak, he says, " No man can say 
 that the feelings of the animal are not repre- 
 sented by a drowsier consciousness in the 
 vegetable world. At all events no line has 
 ever been drawn between the conscious and the 
 unconscious ; for the vegetable shades into the 
 animal by such fine gradations, that it is 
 impossible to say where the one ends and the 
 other begins. . . . The evidences as to 
 
 1 " Fragments of Sc ; ence." Sixth Edition, Longmans, 
 1879, vol. ii. p. 86.
 
 A House of Cards. 83 
 
 consciousness in the vegetable world depend 
 wholly upon our capacity to observe and weigh 
 them." 1 What then? This, evidently: that 
 since we are not possessed of any such 
 capacity ; and since, without that capacity the 
 evidence is non-existent ; it follows that there 
 is no evidence whatever "as to consciousness 
 in the vegetable world." But if there is a fatal 
 lack of evidence there is no lack of imagination ; 
 and Dr. Tyndall's imagination, always brilliant, 
 is fully equal to the occasion. He supposes 
 altered conditions for the observer, and then 
 says : " I can imagine not only the vegetable, 
 but the mineral world, responsive to the proper 
 irritants." 2 "I can imagine ! " What ? " Con- 
 sciousness " in a cabbage, and in a granite cube. 
 But on what evidence ? None that I can find : 
 but plenty that " I can imagine ! " 
 
 In the same category with the suppositions 
 of Mr. Spencer and the imagination of Professor 
 Tyndall must be placed the conceptions of Mr. 
 Darwin. Like them, he has to assume as fun- 
 damental, certain propositions which he cannot 
 prove. But then if he cannot prove, he " can- 
 not doubt," or he "can hardly doubt;" and 
 this incapacity for doubt serves as a highly 
 
 1 " Materialism and its Opponents," ut sup., p. 595. 
 Ibid.
 
 84 Scientific Sophisms. 
 
 convenient substitute for certainty. Thus, 
 e.g. 
 
 " I cannot doubt that the theory of descent 
 with modification embraces all the members of 
 the same class." * And again : " I can indeee* 
 hardly doubt that all vertebrate animals having 
 true lungs, have descended, by ordinary genera- 
 tion from an ancient prototype, of which we 
 know nothing, furnished with a floating appa- 
 ratus or swim-bladder." " It is conceivable that 
 the now utterly lost branchiae might have been 
 gradually worked in by natural selection for 
 some quite distinct purpose, in the same 
 manner as . . it is probable that organs 
 which at a very ancient period served for respir- 
 ation, have been actually converted into organs 
 of flight." 8 
 
 It would be sufficiently surprising, if we had 
 not been so long accustomed to it, to learn that 
 the possession of lungs which constitute the 
 fitness of the possessors for living, not in water, 
 but in air, betrays their aquatic origin. 3 But it 
 is much more surprising that men illustrious in 
 virtue of their scientific eminence should expect 
 
 1 " Origin of Species," p. 484. 
 
 * Ibid., p. 19 1. 
 
 * " Land animals, which in their lungs or modified 
 swim-bladders betray their aquatic origin." (Ibid., p. 196.)
 
 A House of Cards. 85 
 
 a tissue of conjectures such as this to be ac- 
 cepted as if it possessed any scientific authority. 
 The branchiae are " now utterly lost ; " that is, 
 they are non-existent, except to the " imagina- 
 tion," to which " it is conceivable " that they 
 might once have been otherwise. That " ancient 
 mariner," the primeval ancestor of the human 
 race, was "an ancient prototype of which we 
 know nothing." And yet, strange to say, we 
 do know this : that he was " furnished with a 
 floating apparatus or swim-bladder." Som-e 
 thing " might have been " made of the missing 
 branchiae " for some quite distinct purpose ; " 
 for this, although not actual is at least "con- 
 ceivable." Nay, it almost emerges from the 
 realm of the ideal when we are to be shown the 
 modus operand^ " in the same manner as " as 
 what ? As in some other instance of which we 
 have tangible proof ? No, not that : but only as 
 in some other instance where " it is probable," 
 or at least supposable, that "organs which at 
 a very ancient period " may or may not have 
 existed to serve a given end, would be of great 
 service to this theory if only it could be shown 
 first, that they did exist, and then that they 
 ceased to exist, by having been " actually con- 
 verted " into other organs to serve another and 
 a very different end.
 
 86 Scientific Sophisms. 
 
 Mr. Spencer " supposes ; " Dr. Tyndall " im- 
 agines;" Mr. Darwin "conceives." Tier on 
 tier the towering fabric totters to its fall : no 
 stability in the foundation, no continuity in the 
 superstructure; "a flimsy framework of hypo- 
 thesis, constructed upon imaginary or irrelevant 
 facts, with a complete departure from every 
 established canon of scientific investigation."
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 SOPHISMS. 
 
 " No stability in the foundation, no continuity 
 in the superstructure " ; "a flimsy framework of 
 hypothesis, constructed on imaginary facts." If 
 any one imagines that this is the language of 
 exaggeration or romance, let him turn to the 
 twenty-second chapter of Haeckel's " Natural 
 History of Creation," where he will find a 
 complete and circumstantial history of human 
 ancestry in twenty-two stages of existence, from 
 the unicellular Monera up to the perfect man. 
 The theory of man's ape-descent thus constructed 
 is perfect but it is in the air. It lacks but one 
 thing to give it relevance : and that one thing is 
 reality. Like the "chateaux en Espagne" of 
 the penniless Count, it exists only in the, in- 
 terested imagination of the pretender. 
 
 Du Bois Reymond has incurred the bitter 
 and unappeasable wrath of Haeckel by declar- 
 ing this genealogical tree (Stammbauni) to be 
 as authentic in the eyes of a naturalist, as are
 
 Scientific Sophisms. 
 
 the pedigrees of the Homeric heroes in those of 
 an historian. And no wonder ; for, unauthentic 
 and unreal as they are, they are indispensable. 
 Without them the theory of evolution has no 
 pretence to " continuity." But with their aid, 
 although the continuity which they confer is still 
 in nubibus, the argument is rounded with the 
 completeness of a circle. What are the proofs 
 of man's descent from the ape ? The facts of 
 ontogenesis 1 and phylogenesis and their corre- 
 spondence. Where are these facts enumerated ? 
 In the twenty-second chapter of Haeckel's 
 "Natural History of Creation." What is the 
 authority for these facts ? Chiefly this : that 
 they are necessitated by the exigencies of the 
 theory. But where is the demonstrative evid- 
 ence, direct or indirect, that any creatures repre- 
 senting these twenty-two imaginary stages ever 
 existed ? In the majority of instances there is 
 no such evidence ; but they " must have existed," 
 otherwise the theory would be imperfect. 
 
 For example, the Monera, according to 
 Haeckel, are our earliest "ancestors;" and of 
 these it is stated, as if it were a plain historical 
 
 1 Ontogenesis, the history of individual development 
 Phylogenesis, the history of genealogical development. 
 Biogenesis, the history of life development generally, 
 taeckel.)
 
 Sophisms. 89 
 
 fact, that "they originated about the begin- 
 ning of the Laurentian period, by archebiosis 
 or spontaneous generation," from " so-called in- 
 organic compounds of carbon, hydrogen, oxy- 
 gen, and nitrogen." 1 After what has been 
 already said of spontaneous generation, 2 it is 
 almost superfluous to add that this assertion 
 about our earliest "ancestors" is not only 
 destitute, it is also incapable, of proof. And 
 yet the fundamental law (Grundgesetz] of on- 
 togenesis absolutely requires it. 
 
 Again. In his Munich Address, Haeckel re- 
 peats the trite old tale (" as if it had not been 
 a hundred times blown into the 'infinite azure'") 
 that " the Monera, consisting of protoplasm 
 only, bridge over the deep chasm between 
 organic and inorganic nature, and show us Jwiv 
 the simplest and oldest organisms must have 
 originated from inorganic carbon compounds." 8 
 Whereas, on the contrary, the simple fact is 
 that the Monera bridge over nothing whatever ; 
 nor do they show, in any conceivable way, how 
 life has originated from inorganic compounds. 
 Chemically and dynamically the protoplasm of 
 
 1 " Naturliche Schopfungsgeschichte," p. 578. 
 3 Vide sup., p. 50 et seqq., especially p. 59. 
 * " Die Heutige Entwickelungslehre im Verhaltnisse 
 xur Gesammtwissenschaft," p. 13.
 
 go Scientific Sophisms. 
 
 these apparently simple organisms is just as far 
 removed from inorganic matter as is the proto- 
 plasm of the lion or the eagle. 
 
 Of another important group of "ancestors," 
 the Gastreadcty we are told that it " must have 
 existed in the primordial time, and must have 
 included amongst its members the direct ances- 
 tors of man." No one ever saw a single in- 
 dividual of this group ; that is a matter of 
 course. It is equally a matter of course that no 
 traces are to be found of its existence. But 
 the "certain proof" 1 of that existence is sup- 
 posed to be found in the fact that the Am- 
 phioxus, at one period of its development, 
 presejits a type similar to that of of what? 
 Of the imaginary Gastraea whose existence had 
 to be proved ! Our ancestors, the worms, come 
 next ; and, like their predecessors, they " must 
 have existed," because without them we should 
 be at a loss how to derive higher worms, and 
 the articulata generally. 
 
 Professor Huxley, summarizing and review- 
 ing this volume of Haeckel's, is careful to 
 express his "entire concurrence with the general 
 tenor and spirit of the work," and his "high 
 estimate of its value." 3 Of the particular por- 
 
 1 " Naturliche Schopfungsgeschic^te," p. 581. 
 
 * " Critiques and Addresses." Macmillan, 1873, p. 319.
 
 Sophisms* 91 
 
 tion now under review, he says, " In Professor 
 Haeckel's speculation on Phylogeny, or the 
 genealogy of animal forms, there is much that 
 is profoundly interesting, and his suggestions 
 are always supported by sound knowledge and 
 great ingenuity. Whether one agrees or dis- 
 agrees with him, one feels that he has forced 
 the mind into lines of thought in which it is 
 more profitable to go wrong than to stand 
 still. 
 
 "To put his views into a few words, he 
 conceives that all forms of life originally 
 commenced as Monera, or simple particles of 
 protoplasm ; and that these Monera originated 
 from not living matter. Some of the Monera 
 acquired tendencies towards the Protistic, others 
 towards the Vegetal, and others towards the 
 Animal modes of life. The last became animal 
 Monera. Some of the animal M&nera acquired 
 a nucleus, and became amoeba-like creatures ; 
 and out of certain of these, ciliated infusorium- 
 like animals were developed. . These became 
 modified into two stirpes : A, that of the 
 worms ; and B, that of the sponges. The latter 
 by progressive modification gave rise to all the 
 Ccelenterata ; the former to all other animals. 
 But A soon broke up into two principal stirpes, 
 of which one, a, became the root of the Anne- 
 
 G
 
 92 Scientific Sophisms. 
 
 lida, Echinodermata, and Arthropoda^ while the 
 other, b, gave rise to the Polyzoa and Ascidioida, 
 and produced the two remaining stirpes of the 
 Vertebrata and the Mollusca." 1 
 
 Many persons will agree with Mr. Huxley so 
 far as to admit that Professor Haeckel is not 
 destitute either of " sound knowledge," or of 
 " great ingenuity," who yet think Mr. Huxley in 
 error when he represents his favourite Professor 
 as possessing these characteristics in combina- 
 tion. As displayed in his "speculations on 
 Phylogeny," they appear to be not so much in 
 combination as in opposition. Each invades 
 the province of the other. Take away the 
 " knowledge," and you clear the field for the 
 u ingenuity " : but where " sound knowledge " is 
 supreme, " great ingenuity " is superfluous. He 
 who finds it " more profitable to go wrong than 
 to stand still," may indeed display "great 
 ingenuity," but the soundness of his "know- 
 ledge " is by no means unquestionable. 
 
 Take, for example, this very summary of " his 
 views," as here given by Professor Huxley. 
 What he does " view " is something not actual 
 and real, but ideal only. He does not "prove"; 
 he does not even assign reasons for belief ; but, 
 
 1 "Critiques and Addresses." Macmillan, 1873, pp. 
 314,315.
 
 Sophisms. 93 
 
 like Mr. Darwin, he merely " conceives " a cer- 
 tain ideal origin of life. His Monera, at first 
 " conceivable " only, and then " conceived," 
 " acquired tendencies." But how did they 
 acquire them? And how does he know that 
 they were acquired ? The only answer is, that 
 they must have acquired them or they could 
 never have possessed them and they must 
 have possessed them, or they could not have 
 become animal Monera ; and they must have 
 become animal Monera, for without them 
 the theory breaks down, and the existence of 
 the animal world could be accounted for 
 only by admitting the doctrine of a special 
 creation. To meet the exigencies of the 
 theory therefore, these "simple particles," so 
 inexplicably "originated," and with "ten- 
 dencies " so inexplicably " acquired," at last, and 
 in some equally inexplicable manner, " became 
 animal Monera" 
 
 "At last !" By no means : this is but another 
 beginning. Each tier of the hypothesis is 
 constructed only by a recurrence of the same 
 dogmatic assumptions. "Some of the animal 
 Monera acquired a nucleus, and became amoeba- 
 like creatures." "Great ingenuity?" Un- 
 doubtedly : whatever the theory requires is 
 forthcoming on paper. The transformations
 
 94 Scientific Sophisms. 
 
 are as surprising, as unaccountable, and as 
 unreal, as those which ingenuity, by means of 
 sleight of hand, brings out of a conjuror's hat. 
 But it is only conjuring after all; and "sound 
 knowledge " is not imposed upon by sleight of 
 hand. These " simple particles " " originated," 
 "acquired," "became," "were developed," "be- 
 came modified," " gave rise to," and " produced," 
 "all forms of life." How? When? Where? 
 No such origination has ever been witnessed. 
 No such evolution- has ever been observed. 
 No such results have ever been produced. But 
 the theory requires them ; and consequently, to 
 meet the exigencies of the theory, here they are 
 on paper. 
 
 Before dismissing " Professor Haeckel's specu- 
 lations on Phylogeny," there is one other point 
 that calls for special notice. His fundamental 
 postulates are these: "That all forms of life 
 originally commenced as Monera, or simple 
 particles of protoplasm ; and that these Monera 
 originated from not living matter." Yet he 
 himself is perfectly aware that these, his funda- 
 mental postulates, are not only "not proven," 
 but are incapable of proof. "With respect to 
 spontaneous generation," says Mr. Huxley, 1 
 " while admitting that there is no experimental 
 1 "Critiques and Addresses." Macmillan, 1873, P- 34-
 
 Sophisms. 95 
 
 evidence in its favour, Professor Haeckel denies 
 the possibility of disproving it, and points out 
 that the assumption that it has occurred is a 
 necessary part of the doctrine of evolution." 
 So be it. A more complete confirmation of 
 what has been already said on this subject it 
 would be impossible to desire. Evolution now, 
 of necessity, rests on "spontaneous generation:" 
 while spontaneous generation is at best an 
 " assumption " of which its most uncompromis- 
 ing advocate admits that " there is no experi- 
 mental evidence in its favour." So much the 
 worse for "the doctrine of Evolution." 
 
 The position assumed by Mr. Huxley himself 
 in reference to this subject is peculiar; so pecu- 
 liar, indeed, that it had better be stated in his 
 own words. In his Presidential Address to 
 the British Association for the Advancement 
 of Science (1870), he discusses the conflicting 
 claims of Biogenesis and Abiogenesis, in one of. 
 the ablest and most lucid expositions ever given 
 of that problem. By the former term he de- 
 notes "the hypothesis that living matter always 
 arises by the agency of pre-existing living 
 matter;" the latter term denotes the contrary 
 doctrine that living matter may be produced 
 by matter not living. 
 
 The first distinct enunciation of the hypo-
 
 96 Scientific Sophisms. 
 
 thesis that all living matter has sprung from 
 pre-existing living matter, he traces not to our 
 great countryman, Harvey, but to a contem- 
 porary though a junior of Harvey, and trained 
 in the same schools, Francesco Redi. And he 
 concludes his sketch of the progress of the 
 doctrine, and of the successive experiments by 
 which its truth has been established, in these 
 words : " So much for the history of the progress 
 of Redi's great doctrine of Biogenesis, which 
 appears to me, with the limitations I have 
 expressed, to be victorious along the whole line 
 at the present day." * 
 
 His own adhesion to this "great doctrine of 
 Biogenesis " is thus stated : " If in the present 
 state of science the alternative is offered us, 
 cither germs can stand a greater heat than has 
 been supposed, or the molecules of dead matter, 
 for no valid or intelligible reason that is as- 
 signed, are able to rearrange themselves into 
 living bodies, exactly such as can be demon- 
 strated to be frequently produced another way, 
 I cannot understand how choice can be, even 
 for a moment, doubtful. 
 
 " But though I cannot express this conviction 
 of mine too strongly, I must carefully guard 
 myself against the supposition that I intend to 
 1 " Critiques and Addresses," p. 239.
 
 Sophisms. 9 7 
 
 suggest that no such thing as Ablogenesis ever 
 has taken place in the past, or ever will take 
 place in the future. With organic chemistry, 
 molecular physics, and physiology yet in their 
 infancy, and every day making prodigious strides, 
 I think it would be the height of presumption 
 for any man to say that the conditions under 
 which matter assumes the properties we call 
 ' vital ' may not some day be artificially brought 
 together. All I feel justified in affirming is, 
 that I see no reason for believing that the feat 
 has been performed yet." 1 
 
 Analysing this declaration we have three 
 several propositions. Spontaneous generation 
 is a dogma for which "no^alid or intelligible 
 reason is assigned." As between life derived 
 Irom antecedent life, and life derived from some- 
 thing that was not alive, Professor Huxley 
 "cannot understand how choice can be, even 
 for a moment, doubtful." And "this convic- 
 tion " of his he " cannot express too strongly." 
 At the same time, however, he is not quite sure 
 that the opposite of all this may not be also 
 true of some possible future, or perhaps even 
 of some actual past. 
 
 But the climax is yet to come. The declara- 
 tion above quoted, " All I feel justified in af- 
 1 " Critiques and Addresses," p. 238.
 
 98 Scientific Sophisms. 
 
 firming is, that I see no reason for believing that 
 the feat has been performed yet," rests on 
 reasons at once valid and intelligible, assignable 
 and assigned. Any declaration, therefore, an- 
 tagonistic to this, must of necessity be devoid 
 of reason. Yet such is precisely the declaration 
 which, in the very next paragraph, Professor 
 Huxley proceeds to make. "If it were given 
 me," he says, "to look beyond the abyss of 
 geologically-recorded time ... I should 
 expect to be a witness of the evolution of living 
 protoplasm from not living matter." l He would 
 " expect to witness," in that " remote period," the 
 performance of a feat which he sees " no reason 
 for believing " has ever " been performed yet." 
 
 Professor Tyndall believes that if a planet 
 were " carved from the sun, set spinning round 
 an axis, and revolving round the sun at a dis- 
 tance from him equal to that of our earth," 3 
 one of the " consequences of its refrigeration " 
 would be "the development of organic forms." 
 If you ask what reason can be assigned for this 
 belief, you are asked in turn, "Who will set 
 limits to the possible play of molecules in a 
 cooling planet?" 3 
 
 This conclusive question is suggestive of 
 
 1 " Critiques and Addresses," p. 239. 
 * " Fragments of Science." Sixth Edition (1879), v l- " 
 p. 51. * Ibid.
 
 Sophisms. 99 
 
 another : " Who will set limits to the possible 
 play of Professor Tyndall's scientific imagina- 
 tion ?" Why should a cooling planet be so much 
 more likely to produce minute organisms, and to 
 develope " organic forms," than a cooling flask ? 
 Or, as Dr. Bastian pertinently puts it, " If such 
 synthetic processes took place then, why should 
 they not take place now ? Why should the 
 inherent molecular properties of various kinds of 
 matter have undergone so much alteration ? " l 
 
 The opening sentences of the Belfast Address 
 are vitiated by a fallacy which reappears in 
 other places with the regularity of a recurring 
 decimal. "An impulse inherent in primeval 
 man," says Dr. Tyndall, "turned his thoughts 
 and questionings betimes towards the sources 
 of natural phenomena. The same impulse, in- 
 herited and intensified, is the spur of scientific 
 action to-day. Determined by it, by a process 
 of abstraction from experience we form physical 
 theories which lie beyond the pale of experience, 
 but which satisfy the desire of the mind to see 
 every natural occurrence resting upon a cause." 
 
 Now, since of this " primeval man " nothing 
 whatever is known, on what ground can it be 
 affirmed that he possessed the "inherent im- 
 pulse " here attributed to him ? All that is 
 1 u Beginnings of Life," Pref. p. x.
 
 ioo Scientific Sophisms. 
 
 known of him is that his " progenitors " " could 
 be not called human." l How came he then by 
 this " inherent " impulse an impulse now " in- 
 herited " as the distinctive characteristic of all 
 mankind yet not possessed by his non-human 
 ancestors, and therefore not derived from them ? 
 Inexplicable however as is this impulse, it is 
 as nothing when compared with the theories to 
 which it has given rise. The theories have been 
 -invented to satisfy a desire of the mind : the 
 desire " to see every natural occurrence resting 
 upon a cause." And to satisfy this desire the 
 scientific imagination of to-day forms " physical 
 theories which lie beyond the pale of expe- 
 rience," and rest upon nothing. If, as the same 
 eminent authority has told us, a "theoretic 
 conception" is a mere " intellectual figment," 
 until it has been "verified" by "observation 
 and experiment," how is it possible that 
 " theories which lie beyond the pale of expe- 
 rience," should satisfy a mind that desires "to 
 see every natural occurrence resting upon a 
 cause " ? " Physical theories," to be satisfactory 
 to such a mind, must lie within and not 
 beyond the pale of experience. 
 " The porter sits down on the weight which he bore," 
 
 1 Professor Tyndall's (Birmingham Address) " Science 
 and Man," p. 61 1.
 
 Sophisms. 161 
 
 says Wordsworth. And this he may do with 
 perfect safety, even on the parapet of London 
 Bridge ; for that is within the pale of expe- 
 rience. But woe to the unlucky wight who, 
 in the attempt to satisfy his desire for rest, 
 ventures to sit down on some " abstraction " 
 outside the parapet; for that is "beyond the 
 pale of experience." 
 
 " Trace the line of life backwards," says our 
 Lucretian, " and see it approaching more and 
 more to what we call the purely physical con- 
 dition. . . . We break a magnet and find 
 two poles in each of its fragments. We con- 
 tinue the process of breaking ; but, however 
 small the parts, each carries with it, though 
 enfeebled, the polarity of the whole. And 
 when we can break no longer, we prolong the 
 intellectual vision to the polar molecules. Are 
 we not urged to do something similar in the case 
 of life ? . . . Believing as I do in the con- 
 tinuity of Nature, I cannot stop abruptly where 
 our microscopes cease to be of use. Here the 
 vision of the mind authoritatively supplements 
 the vision of the eye. By an intellectual neces- 
 sity I cross the boundary of the experimental 
 evidence, and discern in Matter . . . the 
 promise and potency of all terrestrial Life." x 
 1 " Belfast Address," p. 55.
 
 io2 Scientific Sophisms. 
 
 This "potency" of matter, then, when dis- 
 cerned at all, is discerned only " beyond the 
 pale of experience," "across the boundary of 
 experimental evidence." Scientifically, there- 
 fore, it is non-existent ; a mere " intellectual 
 figment," the product of an imaginary " intel- 
 lectual necessity " : an " unverified theoretic 
 conception," nothing more ; and this only when 
 it has been actually "discerned." But, as 
 simple matter of fact, it has never yet been 
 actually discerned. Professor Tyndall himself 
 has not thus discerned it. What he here calls 
 discernment he elsewhere calls the scientific use 
 of the Imagination. It is he himself who war- 
 rants the affirmation that this alleged " potency 
 of all terrestrial Life " has not been discerned 
 in Matter at all ; it has only been imagined. 
 " Conscious life " is a part, and the principal 
 part, of " all terrestrial life." Has the life of a 
 fern or an oak this potential " consciousness " ? 
 It is Dr. Tyndall who answers, " No man can 
 tell." l Does pig iron possess this potency of 
 conscious cogitation ? or does the loftiest granite 
 needle of the Alps cheer its eternal solitude 
 with the reflection, " Cogito, ergo sum " f There 
 
 1 " Materialism and its Opponents," Fortnightly Re- 
 view, voL xviii. p. 595. " Fragments of Science," Intro- 
 duction.
 
 Sophisms. 103 
 
 Is no answer. They make no sign. No such 
 promise or potency is exhibited, and it is there- 
 fore no wonder that it is not discerned. But 
 alter the conditions of discernment, says Dr. 
 Tyndall, and then " I can imagine not only the 
 vegetable, but the mineral world, responsiv.e to 
 the proper irritants." l Not, "I have discerned"; 
 nor even I can discern ; but only " I can 
 imagine ! " 
 
 And here the matter might be left, were it 
 not that Dr. Tyndall has himself compelled us 
 to ask whether he has not estimated too highly 
 his own power of imagination. For how can 
 even he imagine that which he himself tells us 
 is unimaginable ? The passage from physics 
 to consciousness, he tells us, 2 " is unthinkable." 
 "You cannot satisfy the human understanding 
 in its demand for logical continuity between 
 molecular processes and the phenomena of con- 
 sciousness. This is a rock on which materialism 
 must inevitably split whenever it pretends to be 
 a complete philosophy of life." 8 Nor would 
 the result be altered if even the experiment 
 could be made under the altered conditions 
 
 1 "Materialism and its Opponents," Fortnightly Re- 
 view, vol. xviii. p. 595. " Fragments of Science/' Intro- 
 duction. 
 
 Ibid, p. 589. * " Belfast Address," p. 33.
 
 104 Scientific Sophisms. 
 
 which in the passage above cited, it was found 
 necessary to hypothecate. " Alter the capa- 
 city " of the observer, it was then said, " and 
 the evidence would alter too." l Yet here, 
 only six pages earlier, in the very same paper, 
 we are told : " Were our minds and senses so 
 expanded, strengthened, and illuminated, as to 
 enable us to see and feel the very molecules of 
 the brain ; were we capable of following all 
 their motions, all their groupings, all their 
 electric discharges, if such there be ; and were 
 we intimately acquainted with the correspond- 
 ing states of thought and feeling, we should 
 be as tar as ever from the solution ot the 
 problem, 'How are these physical processes 
 connected with the facts of consciousness ? ' 
 The chasm between the two classes of pheno- 
 mena would still remain intellectually im- 
 passable." * 
 
 Yet notwithstanding all this Dr Tyndall 
 formally proclaims his " belief " " in the contin- 
 uity of Nature." The " continuity " of an " im- 
 passable chasm " ! A chasm " intellectually im- 
 passable " ; and yet " by an intellectual neces- 
 sity " he crosses it " Two classes of pheno- 
 mena," and no .possible means of transition 
 
 1 " Materialism and its Opponents," p. 595. 
 * Ibid., p. 589.
 
 Sophisms. 105 
 
 from one to the other. For, in order to " dis- 
 cern in matter the promise" of conscious life, 
 we must be able,' by observation of its merely 
 physical movements, to forecast, in a world 
 as yet insentient, the future phenomena of 
 thought and feeling. Yet this is precisely the 
 transition which is pronounced " unthinkable." 
 " We do not possess the intellectual organ, 
 nor apparently any rudiment of the organ, 
 which would enable us to pass, by a process 
 of reasoning, from the one to the other. 
 They appear together, but we do not know 
 why," 1 
 
 It is an instructive spectacle. Professor 
 Huxley " expecting " to witness, in the remote 
 past, the performance of a feat which he sees 
 "no reason for believing" has ever yet been 
 performed; and Professor Tyndalh" by an in- 
 tellectual necessity " and a " vision of the mind," 
 crossing "the chasm" "intellectually impass- 
 able" which separates two classes of pheno- 
 mena, although he does " not possess the intel- 
 lectual organ, nor apparently any rudiment of 
 the organ, which would enable him to pass, by 
 a process of reasoning, from the one to the 
 other." 
 
 1 " Materialism and its Opponents," p. 589.
 
 io6 Scientific Sophisms. 
 
 Horace was undoubtedly right : 
 ". . . quandoque bonus dormitat Homerus." * 
 
 But had he lived in our time, and written of 
 the Homers of modern materialism ; had he 
 heard their conjectural hypotheses, their con- 
 flicting asseverations, their autocratic dogma- 
 tism ; 
 
 " Matter is the origin of all that exists ; all 
 natural and mental forces are inherent in it " : 8 
 "All the natural bodies with which we are 
 acquainted are equally living: the distinction 
 which has been held as existing between tht 
 living and tJie dead does not really exist : " 8 
 " The eternal is the nothing of nature : " "There 
 is no other science than that which treats of 
 nothing :" 4 " Holothuriae engender snails ;" 5 and 
 " gazing upon a snail, one believes that he finds 
 the prophesying goddess sitting upon the tri- 
 pod ;" for "a snail is an exalted symbol of 
 mind, slumbering deeply within itself : " 6 while 
 
 1 " Ars Poet.," 359. 
 
 2 Buchner's " Kraft und Stoff." (Collingwood's Transla- 
 tion) p. 32. 
 
 3 " Naturliche Schopfungsgeschichte." By Dr. Ernst 
 HaeckeL Sixth Edition, p. 21. 
 
 4 " Physiophilosophy " of Prof. Oken. 
 6 Buchner's " Kraft und Stoff," p. 80, 
 Oken.
 
 Sophisms* 107 
 
 " Self-consciousness is a living ellipse : " l and 
 Man is merely an automaton, though "a con- 
 scious automaton;" an "automaton endowed 
 with free will : " 2 
 
 Had Horace heard all this, he would have 
 had something more to say about this snail-like 
 " mind, slumbering deeply ; " and would have 
 used a much stronger word than " quandoque." 
 
 1 Oken. 
 
 2 Prof. Huxley, in The Fortnightly Review, November, 
 1874, p. 577-
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 PROTOPLASM. 
 
 THE word " protoplasm " was invented in the 
 year 1846, by the eminent German botanist 
 Von Mohl, as a name for one portion of those 
 nitrogenous contents of the cells of living 
 plants, the close chemical resemblance of which 
 to the essential constituents of living animals 
 had been in that same year, emphatically 
 pointed out by the botanist Payen. But if, 
 pushing our investigation beyond the origin of 
 the name, we inquire as to the nature of the 
 thing, and ask What is Protoplasm ? the answer 
 to that question involves a reference to the 
 historical progress of the physiological cell 
 theory. 
 
 That theory may be said to have wholly 
 grown up since Dr. John Hunter wrote his 
 celebrated work " On the Nature of the Blood." 
 According to Dr. Hunter, new growths de- 
 pended on an exudation of the plasma of the 
 blood, in which, by virtue of its own plasticity,
 
 Scientific Sophisms. 109 
 
 
 
 vessels formed, and conditioned the further pro- 
 gress. When, at a later date, the conception of 
 a cell had been arrived at, Schleiden, for start- 
 ing point, required an intracellular plasma, 
 and Schwann, a structureless exudation, in 
 which minute granules, if not indeed already 
 pre-existent, formed, and by aggregation grew 
 into nuclei, round which singly the production 
 of a membrane at length enclosed a cell. 
 Brown demonstrated a nucleus in the vegetable 
 cell ; as Valentin subsequently did in the 
 animal one ; Miiller insisted on the analogy be- 
 tween animal and vegetable tissue; Schwann's 
 labour in completing the theory of the animal 
 cell may be regarded as completing the first 
 stage of the cell theory : but the raising it to 
 the second stage must be attributed to the 
 wonderful ability of Virchow. And it is to the 
 resolution of this second stage that we owe the 
 word Protoplasm. 
 
 In Virchow's view, the body constituted a 
 free state of individual subjects, with equal 
 rights but unequal capacities. These were the 
 cells, which consisted each of an enclosing 
 membrane, and an enclosed nucleus with sur- 
 rpunding intracellular matrix or matter. These 
 cells propagated themselves, chiefly by partition 
 Or division ; and the fundamental principle of
 
 1 1 o Protoplasm. 
 
 the entire theory was expressed in the dictum, 
 " Omnis cellula e cellula? 
 
 The first step in resolution of this theory was 
 the elimination of the investing membrane. 
 Such membrane may and does ultimately form ; 
 but in the first instance, for the most part, the 
 cell is naked. The second step was the elimin- 
 ation, or at least the subordination, of the 
 nucleus. The nucleus is now discovered to be 
 necessary neither to the division nor to the 
 existence of the cell. 
 
 Thus, then, stripped of its membrane, relieved 
 of its nucleus, what now remains for the cell ? 
 Nothing, but that which was the contained 
 matter, the intracellular matrix, and is Proto- 
 plasm. 
 
 The application of the word, however, to the 
 element in question, like the history of the 
 thing, was marked by several stages. First 
 came Dujardin's discovery of sarcode. Then, 
 as above mentioned, Von Mohl's introduction 
 of the term protoplasm as the name for the 
 layer of the vegetable cell that lined the cellu- 
 lose, and enclosed the nucleus. Cohn, four 
 years later, proclaimed "the protoplasm of the 
 botanist, and the contractile substance and 
 sarcode of the zoologist" to be, "if not identical, 
 yet in a high degree analogous substances."
 
 Scientific Sophisms. 1 1 1 
 
 Remak first extended the use of the term pro- 
 toplasm from the layer which bore that name in 
 the vegetable cell to the analogous element in 
 the animal cell ; but " it was Max Schultze, in 
 particular, who by applying the name to the 
 intracellular matrix, or contained matter, when 
 divested of membrane, and by identifying this 
 substance itself with sarcode, first fairly estab- 
 lished protoplasm, name and thing, in its 
 present position." 
 
 In England, however, it is Professor Huxley 
 who, by his brilliant and well-known Essay on 
 this subject in the Fortnightly Review for Feb- 
 ruary, 1869, has acquired a prominence, though 
 by no means a pre-eminence, all his own. Tak- 
 ing for his theme the " Physical Basis of Life," 
 and treading in the track of that " host of in- 
 vestigators " of whom he tells us that they 
 "have accumulated evidence, morphological, 
 physiological, and chemical," in favour of that 
 " immense unite de composition elementaire 
 dans tous les corps vivants de la nature," of 
 which Payen wrote so clearly nearly thirty-five 
 years ago ; he combats " the widely-spread 
 conception of life as a something which works 
 through matter, but is independent of it"; 
 and affirms, on the contrary, " that matter and 
 life are inseparably connected, and that there is
 
 1 1 2 Protoplasm. 
 
 one kind of matter which is common to all 
 living beings." 
 
 Notwithstanding the wide diversity that pre- 
 sents itself to our view in the countless varieties 
 of living beings, it yet is true that all vegetable 
 and animal tissues without exception, from that 
 of the brightly coloured lichen on the rock, to 
 that of the painter whj admires or of the 
 botanist who dissects it, are essentially one in 
 composition and in structure. The microscopic 
 fungi clustering by millions within the body of a 
 single fly, the giant pine of California towering 
 to the height of a cathedral spire, the Indian 
 fig-tree covering acres with its profound shadow, 
 animalcules minute enough to dance in myriads 
 on the point of a needle, and the huge leviathan 
 of the deep, the flower that a girl wears in her 
 hair, and the blood that courses through her 
 veins, are, each and all, smaller or larger multi- 
 ples or aggregates of one and the same structural 
 unit, and all therefore ultimately resolvable 
 into the same identical elements. That unit 
 is a corpuscle composed of oxygen, hydrogen, 
 nitrogen, and carbon. Hydrogen, with oxygen, 
 forms water ; carbon, with oxygen, carbonic 
 acid ; and hydrogen, with nitrogen, ammonia, 
 These three compounds water, carbonic acid, 
 and ammonia, in like manner, when combined 
 form protoplasm.
 
 Scientific Sophisms. 113 
 
 In all this, however, there is nothing new but 
 the nomenclature. 1 But the case is widely 
 altered when Mr. Huxley proceeds to assert 
 that amid all the diversities of living things and 
 living beings there exists a threefold unity : a 
 unity of faculty, a unity of form, and a unity of 
 substance. In relation to the first of these, for 
 example, faculty, power, activity ; according 
 to Mr. Huxley, even human activities must be 
 referred to three categories contractility, ali- 
 mentation, and reproduction ; and for the lower 
 forms of life, whether animal or vegetable, there 
 are no fewer than these same three. The 
 granulated, semi-fluid layer which constitutes 
 the lining of the woody case of the nettle-sting 
 is possessed of contractility. And in this 
 possession of contractile substance, other plants 
 are as the nettle, and all animals are as plants. 
 Protoplasm is common to the whole of them ; 
 and this lining in the sting of the nettle is pro- 
 toplasm. So that between the powers of the 
 lowest plant or animal and those of the highest, 
 the difference is one not of kind, but only of 
 degree. The colourless blood-corpuscles in 
 
 1 Aixd this nomenclature, though new, is by no means 
 improved. It is inexact, indefinite, indiscriminate, and 
 therefore necessarily misleading. See below ; especially 
 pages 132, 135-142.
 
 H4 Protoplasm. 
 
 man and the other animals are identical with 
 the protoplasm of the nettle ; and he, not less 
 than they, at first consisted of nothing more 
 than an aggregation of such corpuscles. Pro- 
 toplasm is their common constituent ; in proto- 
 plasm they have their common origin. At last, 
 as at first, all that lives, and every part of all 
 that lives, is but nucleated or unnucleated, 
 modified or unmodified protoplasm. 
 
 This series of assertions culminates in a 
 dogma still more astounding. Protoplasm, from 
 being " the basis," becomes " the matter of life." 
 Apart from this matter, life is unknown. The 
 "phenomena of life," however vast and varied, 
 exhibit neither force nor faculty that is not 
 derived from the chemical constituents of its 
 material "basis." All the activities of life: 
 vegetable, animal, human ; physical, intellec- 
 tual, religious arise solely (we are told) from 
 " the arrangement of the molecules of ordinary 
 matter." What reason is there, for instance, 
 why thought should not be termed a property 
 of thinking protoplasm, just as congelation is a 
 property of water, or centrifugience of gas ? 
 Professor Huxley protests that he is aware of 
 no reason. We call, he says, the several pheno- 
 mena which are peculiar to water "the pro- 
 perties of water, and do not hesitate to believe
 
 Scientific Sophisms. 1 1 5 
 
 that in some way or other they result from the 
 properties of the component elements of water. 
 We do not assume that something called 
 aquosity entered into and took possession of the 
 oxide of hydrogen as soon as it was formed, 
 and then guided the aqueous particles to their 
 places in the facets of the crystal or among the 
 leaflets of the hoar-frost." Why, then, "when 
 carbonic acid, water, and ammonia disappear, 
 and in their place, under the influence of pre- 
 existing protoplasm, an equivalent weight of 
 the matter of life makes its appearance," should 
 we assume, in the living matter, the existence 
 of "a something which has no representative 
 or correlative in the unliving matter that gave 
 rise to it"? Why imagine that into the newly 
 formed hydro-nitrogenised oxide of carbon a 
 something called vitality entered and took 
 possession ? " What better philosophic status 
 has vitality than aquosity?" 
 
 These questions, as will presently appear, 
 present no difficulty. They admit of answers 
 too complete to leave room for further question. 
 The only difficulty is that which presents itself 
 when we attempt to determine Professor Hux- 
 ley's relation to them. For incredible as it 
 must seem to those not acquainted with the 
 facts, the propositions above cited are at once
 
 1 1 6 Protoplasm. 
 
 the subject of his affirmation and of his denial. 
 Dr. Stirling concludes his refutation of them in 
 a sentence to which Professor Huxley has at- 
 tempted a reply. The sentence is this: 
 
 " In short, the whole position of Mr. Huxley, that all 
 organisms consist alike of the same life-matter, which 
 lifd-matter is, for its part, due only to chemistry, must be 
 ' pronounced untenable,' nor less untenable the material- 
 ism he would found on it." * 
 
 And this is the reply: 
 
 " The paragraph contains three distinct assertions con- 
 cerning my views, and just the same number of utter mis- 
 representations of them." The first [that " all organisms 
 consist alike of the same life-matter "] " turns on the 
 ambiguity of the word ' same ' " ; the second [that this 
 "life-matter is due only to chemistry"] "is in my judg- 
 ment absurd, and certainly I have never said anything 
 resembling it ; while as to Number 3, one great object 
 of my Essay * was to show that what is called ' mate- 
 rialism ' has no sound philosophical basis." * 
 
 1 "As Regards Protoplasm." By James Hutchinson 
 Stirling, F.R.C.S., and LL.D. Edinburgh. Longmans, 
 
 1872, p. 58. 
 
 2 " ' One great object of my Essay,' says Mr. Huxley ! 
 Yes, truly ; but what of the other great, greater, and 
 greatest object ? ' Utter misrepresentation ! ' The only 
 
 utter misrepresentation concerned here is Pshaw ! the 
 
 whole thing is beneath speech." ("As Regards Proto- 
 plasm," ut sup., p. 59.) 
 
 s " Yeast," in " Critiques and Addresses." Macmillan, 
 
 1873, P- 90.
 
 Scientific Sophisms. 1 1 7 
 
 In rejoinder, Dr. Stirling cites " Mr. Huxley's 
 own phrases " to prove that the alleged am- 
 biguity does not exist : " There is such a thing 
 as a physical basis or matter of life ; " . . . 
 or "fc physical basis or matter of life." There 
 is " a single physical basis of life," and through 
 its unity, " the whole living world " is pervaded 
 by "a threefold unity" "namely a unity of 
 power or faculty, a unity of form, and a unity 
 of substantial composition." 
 
 On the second point ; that " life-matter " is 
 "due only to chemistry," Dr. Stirling is "pleased 
 to think that Mr. Huxley has now come to 
 consider such an opinion ' absurd,' " but repeats 
 that "he has always, and everywhere, for all 
 that, described his 'life-matter as due .to 
 chemistry,' " and adds, " Here are a few ex- 
 amples : " 
 
 " ' If the properties of water may be properly said to 
 result from the nature and disposition of its component 
 molecules, I can find no intelligible ground for refusing 
 to say that the properties of protoplasm result from the 
 nature and disposition of its molecules.' 
 
 " Is it possible for words more definitely to 
 convey the statement that the properties of 
 water and protoplasm are precisely on the same 
 level, and that as the former are of molecular 
 (physical, chemical) origin, so are the latter?
 
 1 1 8 Protoplasm. 
 
 Again, after having told us that protoplasm is 
 carbonic acid, water, and ammonia, ' which cer- 
 tainly possess no properties but those of ordinary 
 matter/ he proceeds to speak as follows : 
 
 "'Carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen are all life- 
 less bodies. Of these, carbon and oxygen unite in certain 
 proportions, and under certain conditions, to give rise to 
 carbonic acid ; hydrogen and oxygen produce water ; 
 nitrogen and hydrogen give rise to ammonia. These new 
 compounds, like the elementary bodies of which they are 
 composed, are lifeless.' 
 
 "So far then, surely, I am allowed to say 
 that these new compounds are due to chemistry. 
 Observe now what follows : 
 
 "'But when they' (the compounds) 'are brought to- 
 gether, under certain conditions, they give rise to the 
 still more complex body protoplasm, and this protoplasm 
 exhibits the phenomena of life. I see no break in this 
 series of steps in molecular complication, and I am un- 
 able to understand why the language which is applicable 
 to any one term of the series may not be used to any of 
 the others.' 
 
 " Here, evidently, I am ordered by Mr. Hux- 
 ley himself, not to change my language, but 
 to characterise these latter results as I charac- 
 terised those former ones. If I spoke then of 
 ammonia, etc., as due to chemistry, so must 
 I now speak of protoplasm, life- matter, as due 
 to chemistry a statement which Mr. Huxley
 
 Scientific Sophisms. 1 1 9 
 
 not only orders me to make, but makes himself. 
 Very curious all this, then. When I do what 
 he bids me do, when I say what he says that 
 if ammonia, etc., are due to chemistry, proto- 
 plasm is also due to chemistry Mr. Huxley 
 turns round and calls out that I am saying an 
 'absurdity,' which he, for his part, 'certainly 
 never said ! ' But let me make just one other 
 quotation : 
 
 " ' When hydrogen and oxygen are mixed in a certain 
 proportion, and an electric spark is passed through them, 
 they disappear, and a quantity of water equal in weight 
 to the sum of their weights appears in their place.' 
 
 " Now, no one in his senses will dispute that 
 this is a question of chemistry, and of nothing 
 but chemistry; but it is Mr. Huxley himself 
 who asks in immediate and direct reference 
 here : 
 
 " ' Is the case in any way changed when carbonic acid, 
 water, and ammonia disappear, and in their place, under 
 the influence of pre-existing living protoplasm, an equiva- 
 lent weight of the matter of life makes its appearance ?' 
 
 " Surely Mr. Huxley has no object whatever 
 here but to place before us the genesis of proto- 
 plasm, and surely also this genesis is a purely 
 chemical one ! The very ' influence of pre- 
 existing living protoplasm,' which pre-existcnce
 
 1 20 Protoplasm. 
 
 could not itself exist for the benefit of the first 
 protoplasm that came into existence, is asserted 
 to be in precisely the same case with reference 
 to the one process as that of the electric spark 
 with reference to the other. And yet, in the 
 teeth of such passages, Mr. Huxley feels himself 
 at liberty to say now, 'Statement Number 2 
 is, in my judgment, absurd, and certainly I have 
 never said anything resembling if.' It is a pity 
 to see a man in the position of Mr. Huxley so 
 strangely forget himself! " 
 
 On the third head Mr. Huxley's "mate- 
 rialism" Dr. Stirling's refutation is equally 
 conclusive, but at the same time, much too 
 elaborate to admit of quotation here. No 
 summary could do it justice ; it must be read 
 in its entirety. In this place, however, it does 
 not concern us. It lies outside the sphere of 
 our investigation. We are not now inquiring 
 what esoteric meaning may be attached by 
 Mr. Huxley to the language he has chosen to 
 employ ; nor even are we inquiring whether 
 that language is compatible with any such 
 meaning whatever. Our inquiry is much more 
 simple. It is limited to the question of fact. 
 Is it certain, is it demonstrable, is it scientifically 
 true that the facts of the case are as stated by 
 Mr. Huxley? On this very question of "mate- 
 
 I
 
 Scientific Sophisms. 121 
 
 rialism," for instance, Mr. Huxley asserts that 
 " all vital action " is but " the result of the 
 molecular forces " of the physical basis ; and 
 consequently, to use his own words when ad- 
 dressing his Edinburgh audience, " the thoughts 
 to which I am now giving utterance, and your 
 thoughts regarding them, are but the expression 
 of molecular changes in that matter of life 
 which is the source of our other vital phe- 
 nomena." With these words in their recollec- 
 tion, few persons would be disposed to differ 
 from Mr. Huxley when he says that "most 
 undoubtedly the terms of his propositions are 
 distinctly materialistic." 
 
 But are they true ? 
 
 " I know of no form of negation sufficiently 
 explicit, comprehensive, and emphatic in which 
 to reply to this question." The doctrines of 
 Scientific Materialism, as above stated, in Pro- 
 fessor Huxley's own words, are " so ujtterly at 
 variance with the most familiar facts of chemis- 
 try that it is marvellous they should have so 
 long passed unchallenged." * 
 
 I. To enter into detail. It is in no sense true 
 
 1 " Unchallenged, that is," adds Dr. Elam, " on purely 
 chemical grounds. On other issues, both relevant and 
 irrelevant, they have been often objected to."
 
 122 Protoplasm. 
 
 that protoplasm " breaks up " (as Professor 
 Huxley says it does) T into carbonic acid, water, 
 and ammonia, any more than it is true that 
 iron, when exposed to the action of oxygen, 
 " breaks up " into oxide of iron. A compound 
 body can break up only into its constituent 
 parts ; and these are not the constituent parts 
 of protoplasm. " To convert protoplasm into 
 these three compounds requires an amount of 
 oxygen nearly double the weight of the original 
 mass of protoplasm ; speaking approximately, 
 every 100 Ibs. of protoplasm would require 170 
 Ibs. of oxygen." 
 
 2. " Under certain conditions," says Professor 
 Huxley, 2 whereas, in point of fact, under no 
 possible "conditions" can carbonic acid, water, 
 and ammonia, when brought together, " give rise 
 to the still more complex body protoplasm." 
 " Not even on paper can any multiple, or any 
 combination whatever of these substances, be 
 
 1 " The matter of life . . . breaks up ... into car- 
 bonic acid, water, and ammonia, which certainly possess 
 no properties but those of ordinary matter." (Professor 
 Huxley, in The Fortnightly Review, February, 1869.) 
 
 * " But when they [the " lifeless compounds " carbonic 
 acid, water, and ammonia] are brought together, under 
 certain conditions, they give rise to the still more com- 
 plex body protoplasm, and this protoplasm exhibits the 
 phenomena of life." (Ibid.)
 
 Scientific Sophisms. 123 
 
 made to represent the composition of proto- 
 plasm ; much less can it be effected in practice. 
 Carbonic acid (CO 2 ), water (H 2 O), and ammonia 
 (NH 3 ), cannot by any combination be brought 
 to represent C, 6 H 26 N 4 O 10 , which is the equiva- 
 lent of protein or protoplasm. 
 
 3. " But the most incredible of all the errors, 
 if it be not simply a mystification, is found in 
 the comparison between the formation of water 
 from its elements and the origination of proto- 
 plasm. Hydrogen and oxygen doubtless unite 
 to form an equivalent weight of water ; that 
 is, an amount of water equalling in weight the 
 combined weights of the hydrogen and the 
 oxygen ; and Professor Huxley asks, ' Is the 
 case in any way changed when carbonic acid, 
 water, and ammonia disappear, and in their 
 place, under the influence of pre-existing proto- 
 plasm, an equivalent weight of the matter of 
 life makes its appearance ? ' 
 
 " The answer is, Certainly ; the case is 
 changed in every possible way in which a 
 process, whether chemical or otherwise, can be 
 changed. But it must also be premised that 
 the fact as stated is not true, that when these 
 three substances disappear, under certain con- 
 ditions, an ' equivalent weight of the matter of 
 life makes its appearance.' Every chemist
 
 1 24 Protoplasm. 
 
 knows what an ' equivalent weight ' means ; 
 knows also that there can be no weight of 
 protoplasm ' equivalent/ chemically speaking, 
 to any amount of carbonic acid, water, and 
 ammonia, that may or can have disappeared. 
 These are simple, well-known, and understood 
 chemical facts, and need no discussion. 
 
 4. " But granting for the moment, and for the 
 sake of argument, that these bodies disappear, 
 and that protoplasm appears, it is manifest 
 almost too manifest to require stating that there 
 is no resemblance whatever in the two processes 
 by which the results which Professor Huxley 
 considers identical are obtained. In the for- 
 mation of water, the whole of its constituent 
 parts combine to form an equal weight of the 
 compound; the case is entirely otherwise with 
 regard to protoplasm, for here the so-called 
 elements do not combine at all. On the con- 
 trary, they are uncombined or decomposed, by 
 a process and by affinities most assuredly un- 
 known in our laboratories. The carbonic acid 
 and the ammonia are certainly decomposed, and 
 whilst the carbon and nitrogen are assimilated, 
 and add to the bulk of the plant, part of the 
 oxygen is eliminated by the leaves, and part is 
 destined to the performance of various functions 
 in the economy."
 
 Scientific Sophisms. 125 
 
 And yet it is in this complex programme of 
 decomposition, selection, fixation, and rejection, 
 that we are asked to see nothing more than a 
 process analogous to the formation of water 
 from its elements ; and Professor Huxley can 
 see " no break." How wide must a chasm be 
 before it is visible to an Evolutionist ? 
 
 5. "Under certain conditions" only, and not 
 otherwise, do the " lifeless compounds " afore- 
 said " give rise to the still more complex body 
 protoplasm, and this protoplasm exhibits the 
 phenomena of life." What are these conditions ? 
 The answer is that " when carbonic acid, water, 
 and ammonia disappear, and in their place," " an 
 equivalent weight of the matter of life makes its 
 appearance," this appearance and disappearance 
 are due to " the influence of pre-existing proto- 
 plasm." 
 
 From this it has been hastily, but most un- 
 warrantably, assumed that vitality is a result of 
 some particular arrangement of the molecular 
 particles, the chemical constituents of proto- 
 plasm. In other words, that life is a product 
 of protoplasm. But this proposition is demon- 
 strably untrue. 
 
 Protoplasm, as known to us, is non-existent 
 except as produced " under the influence of pre- 
 existing protoplasm." Water, ammonia, and
 
 1 26 Protoplasm. 
 
 carbonic acid cannot combine to form proto- 
 plasm unless a principle of life " preside over 
 the operation. Unless under those auspices, the 
 combination never takes place. At present, 
 whenever assuming its presidential functions, 
 this principle of life appears invariably to be 
 embodied in pre-existing protoplasm ; but no 
 one denies that there was a time when the fact 
 was otherwise. Time was as geology leaves 
 no room for doubt when our globe consisted 
 wholly of inorganic matter, and possessed not 
 one single vegetable or animal inhabitant. In 
 that time it was not only possible for life, with- 
 out being previously embodied, to mould and 
 vivify inert matter, but the possible was the 
 actual too. For if matter, inorganic and inani- 
 mate, had not been organized and animated by 
 unembodied life, it would have remained inor- 
 ganic and inanimate to this day. Those who 
 would escape this conclusion have only one 
 possible alternative. They must suppose that 
 death gave birth to life. That matter, absolutely 
 inert and lifeless, did spontaneously exert itself 
 with all the marvellous energy indispensable for 
 its conversion into living matter. That in mak- 
 ing this exertion it wielded powers of which 
 it was not possessed ; powers which, under 
 the conditions of the case, it could not have
 
 Scientific Sophisms. 127 
 
 acquired, except by exercising them before it 
 had acquired them. That, absolutely inert as it 
 was, it yet made this impossible exertion ; and, 
 lifeless as it was, it created life. 
 
 To reject incredible absurdities like these is 
 to admit that originally protoplasm must have 
 been produced by life not previously embodied ; 
 but to admit this and yet to suppose that when, 
 vis now, embodied life is observed to give birth 
 to new embodiments, the operative force be- 
 longs not to the life itself, but to its protoplas- 
 mic embodiment is " much the same as to sup- 
 pose that when a tailor, dressed in clothes of 
 nis own making, makes a second suit of clothes, 
 this latter is the product not of the tailor him- 
 self, hut of the clothes he is wearing." 1 Life 
 therefore is not a product of protoplasm. 
 
 d Nor is it a property of protoplasm. 
 
 By the property of an object is meant, in 
 scientific speech, not merely something belong- 
 ing to the object, but also that it is a thing 
 without which the object could not subsist. 
 Thus, fluidity, solidity, and vaporisation are 
 " properties " of water, because matter which 
 did not liquefy, congeal, and evaporate at 
 
 1 " Old-fashioned Ethics, and Common-sense Meta- 
 physics." By William Thomas Thornton, Macmillan, 
 1873, chap. iv. p. 167. (" Huxleyism.")
 
 128 Protoplasm. 
 
 different temperatures would not be water. It 
 is the exhibition of these phenomena, in con- 
 junction with certain others, that constitutes the 
 "aquosity " or wateriness of water. But in no 
 such sense, nor in any sense whatever, is life or 
 " vitality " essential to that species of matter 
 which Mr. Huxley calls "matter of life," or 
 protoplasm. Take from water its aquosity, 
 and water ceases to be water; but you may 
 take away vitality from protoplasm, and yet, 
 according to Mr. Huxley's own affirmation, 1 
 leave protoplasm as much protoplasm as be- 
 fore. Whatever therefore may be the relation 
 which vitality bears to protoplasm, it is a re- 
 lation totally different from that which aquo- 
 sity bears to water. When therefore Professor 
 Huxley asks : " What better philosophic status 
 has vitality than aquosity ? " we answer : Pro- 
 toplasm can do perfectly well without "vital- 
 ity ;" but water cannot for a moment dispense 
 with " aquosity." " Protoplasm, whether living 
 or lifeless, is equally itself; but unaqueous 
 water is unmitigated gibberish." 2 Since then, 
 as Mr. Huxley affirms, protoplasm even when 
 
 1 " Living or dead" says Mr. Huxley : " If the pheno- 
 mena exhibited by water are its properties, so are those 
 presented by protoplasm, living or dead, its properties." 
 
 1 Thornton's " Old-fashioned Ethics," ut sup., p. 165.
 
 Scientific Sophisms. 129 
 
 deprived of its vitality is still protoplasm, it 
 is axiomatically evident that vitality is not in- 
 dispensable to protoplasm, and is therefore not 
 a "property" of protoplasm. 
 
 7. But this question of Mr. Huxley's is fur- 
 ther noticeable on account of the connection in 
 which it is found ; a connection highly signifi- 
 cant in relation to its author's disclaimer of 
 "materialism." In varying phrase, but always 
 to the same effect, in three short consecutive 
 sentences he thrice reiterates the question : 
 
 " What justification is there then for the assumption of 
 the existence in the living matter of a something which 
 has no representative or correlative in the not-living mat- 
 ter that gave rise to it ? What better philosophic status 
 has vitality than aquosity ? And why should vitality 
 hope for a better fate than the other itys which have dis- 
 appeared since Martinus Scriblerus accounted for the 
 operation of the meat-jack by its inherent meat-roasting 
 quality, and scorned the materialism of those who ex- 
 plained the turning of the spit by a certain mechanism 
 worked by the draught of the chimney ? " 1 
 
 " This," replies Dr. Elam, " is very amusing 
 no one can be more so than Professor Huxley ; 
 a little perception of facts and analogies 
 would make it perfect. The answer is obvious, 
 if answer is required. All these are machines 
 
 1 Fortnightly Review, February, 1869, p. 140.
 
 1 30 Protoplasm. 
 
 which man has made, and can again make by 
 the use of well-known forces and material 
 which he can combine at will ; it is not there- 
 fore necessary to hypothecate any other force 
 or principle. When man can make any, even 
 the simplest organism, out of inorganic matter, 
 then shall we be compelled to acknowledge 
 that chemical and other forces are sufficient, 
 and that the hypothesis of a vital principle 
 has had its day and may cease to be. To 
 Professor Huxley's illustration I will respond 
 seriously when he has demonstrated to me 
 that meat-jacks have been developed from 
 the beginning of time only and exclusively 
 under the immediate contact and influence of 
 pre-existing meat-jacks. Until then the analogy 
 is scarcely close enough to need refutation or 
 discussion." 1 
 
 8. Mr. Huxley, as above cited, refuses to 
 recognise the distinction between dead proto- 
 plasm and that which lives. Other authorities 
 however, and especially the Germans who have 
 led the way in this investigation, say expressly 
 that whether the same elements are to be 
 referred to the protoplasmic cells equally after 
 death as before it is a matter entirely unknown. 
 While this is so it is evident that Mr. Huxley's 
 
 1 Contemporary Review, September, 1876, p. 558 etseq.
 
 Scientific Sophisms. 131 
 
 chemical analysis of dead protoplasm cannot 
 be regarded as decisive for that which is not 
 dead. And yet, throughout his whole argument, 
 he builds on this same chemical analysis as 
 if it were decisive. Thus he speaks of mutton 
 as "once the living protoplasm," now the 
 " same matter altered by death " and cookery, 
 but yet as not being by these alterations ren- 
 dered "incompetent to resume its old functions 
 as matter of life." 1 He speaks of its being 
 subjected to " subtle influences " which " will 
 convert the dead protoplasm into the living 
 protoplasm " which will " raise the complex 
 substance of dead protoplasm to the higher 
 power, as one may say, of living protoplasm." 3 
 In all this, as throughout, when he speaks of 
 dead matter of life and living matter of life, 
 not only is there no hint of any difference in 
 chemical constitution, or in " arrangement of 
 molecules," between the dead and the living, 
 but when, in anticipation of such difference, 
 he alludes to it at all, it is only to pronounce 
 it "frivolous." 8 
 
 So be it. Let the identity of protoplasm, 
 "living or dead," as assumed by Mr. Huxley, 
 
 1 Fortnightly Review, February, 1869, P- I 37 
 
 * Ibid., p. 138. 
 
 Ibid., p. 135-
 
 132 Protoplasm. 
 
 be at least for the moment, and for the 
 sake of the argument conceded. What then ? 
 The properties of protoplasm, as we have seen, 
 are altogether dependent upon the arrangement 
 of its constituent atoms. But protoplasm in 
 one of these conditions (i.e., dead) manifests 
 passive properties only ; while, in the opposite 
 condition, without any change, i.e., any known 
 or knowable change, in its chemical properties 
 or molecular arrangement, we find it exer- 
 cising a vast variety of active properties, as- 
 similation, contraction, reproduction ; not to 
 mention thought, feeling, and will. Here then 
 we have an effect, or rather a whole train of 
 effects most marvellous, witJwiit a cause, a 
 conclusion that the most enthusiastic Evolu- 
 tionist would hesitate to pronounce in " general 
 harmony with . scientific thought." * From this 
 impossible, and yet inevitable conclusion there 
 is no possible escape except (i) by hypo- 
 thecating a change, mechanical or chemical, of 
 which, by Professor Huxley's own confession, 
 we can have no possible knowledge, * and on 
 which therefore " we have no right to speculate ;" 
 
 1 " Belfast, Address," ut sup., p. 58 : " The strength of 
 the doctrine of evolution consists . . . in its general 
 harmony with scientific thought," 
 
 * Fortnightly Review.
 
 Scientific Sophisms. J 33 
 
 or (2) by confessing that the " subtle influences " 
 invoked by Mr. Huxley to eke out the defi- 
 ciencies of protoplasmic chemistry are nothing 
 else than under another name that very 
 same vital force or vital principle in which it 
 is now so unfashionable and so unscientific 
 to believe. 1 
 
 9. In truth, however, the fulcrum on which 
 Mr. Huxley's protoplasmic materialism rests 
 is a single inference from a chemical analogy. 
 But analogy, which is never identity, though 
 often mistaken for it, is apt to betray. The 
 difference which it covers may be essential, 
 while the likeness it reveals may be inessential 
 as far as the conclusion is concerned. The 
 analogy to which Mr. Huxley trusts has two 
 references : one to chemical composition, and 
 one to a certain stimulus that determines it. 
 In both of these the analogy fails : in both it 
 can only seem to succeed by discounting the 
 elements of difference that still subsist. 
 
 It cannot be denied that protoplasm is a 
 chemical substance. It cannot be denied that 
 protoplasm is a physical substance. Both 
 physically and chemically, water (as a compound 
 of hydrogen, and oxygen) and protoplasm (as 
 
 1 Dr. Elam's "Automatism and Evolution" 
 560.
 
 1 34 Protoplasm. 
 
 a compound of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, 
 and nitrogen) are clearly analogous. -So far 
 as it is on chemical and physical structure 
 that the possession of distinctive properties 
 in any case depends, both bodies may be said 
 to be on a par. So far the analogy must be 
 allowed to hold ; so far, but no farther. " One 
 step farther, and we see not only that 
 protoplasm has, like water, a chemical and 
 physical structure ; but that, unlike water, it 
 has also an organised or organic structure. 
 Now this, on the part of protoplasm, is a 
 possession in excess ; and with relation to that 
 excess there can be no grounds for analogy." 
 When therefore Mr. Huxley says, " If the 
 phenomena exhibited by water are its properties, 
 so are those presented by protoplasm, living 
 or dead, its properties," the answer is, " Living 
 or dead ? " organic or inorganic ? That alter- 
 native is simply slipped in and passed ; but it 
 is in that alternative that the whole matter 
 lies. Chemically, dead protoplasm is to Mr. 
 Huxley quite as good as living protoplasm. 
 It is this dead protoplasm which he finds so 
 delectable in the shape of bread, lobster, 
 mutton. But then it is to be remembered that 
 it is only these as being inorganic that can 
 be placed on the same level as water ; while
 
 Scientific Sophisms. 135 
 
 living protoplasm is not only unlike water, but 
 it is unlike dead protoplasm. Living and dead 
 protoplasm are identical only as far as chemistry 
 is concerned (if indeed so far as that) ; it is 
 therefore evident, consequently, that difference 
 between the two cannot depend on that in 
 which they are identical ; i.e., cannot depend 
 on the chemistry. 
 
 Life, then, is something else than the result 
 of chemical or physical structure, and it is in 
 another sphere than those of physics or che- 
 mistry that its explanation must be found. It 
 is thus that, lifted high enough, the light of the 
 analogy between water and protoplasm is seen 
 to go out. Water, like its constituent elements, 
 has only chemical and physical qualities ; 
 like them, it is still inorganic. But not so in 
 protoplasm, where, together with retention of 
 the chemical and physical likeness, there is the 
 addition of the unlikeness of life, of organization, 
 and of ideas. But this addition is a world in 
 itself: a new and higher world, the world of 
 a self-realizing thought, the world of an entelechy. 
 The relation of the organic to the inorganic 
 of protoplasm dead to protoplasm alive is 
 not an analogy, but an antithesis : The anti- 
 thesis of antitheses. In it, in fact, we are in 
 presence of the one impassable gulf "that
 
 136 Protoplasm. 
 
 gulf which Mr. Huxley's protoplasm is as 
 powerless to efface as any other material ex- 
 pedient that has ever been suggested since the 
 eyes of men first looked into it the mighty 
 gulf between death and life." * 
 
 IO. " Protoplasm is the clay of the potter, 
 which, bake it and paint it as he will, remains clay, 
 separated by artifice, and not by nature, from 
 the commonest brick or sun-dried clod." On 
 this it has been justly observed that " Mr. Huxley 
 puts emphatically his whole soul into this sen- 
 tence, and evidently believes it to be, if we may 
 use the word, a clincher." But the answer is 
 easy. The assertion that all bricks, being made 
 of clay, are the same thing, is one that involves 
 its own limitation. Yes, undoubtedly, we answer, 
 if they are made of the same clay. The bricks 
 are identical if the clay is identical ; but, on 
 the other hand, by as much as the clay differs 
 will the bricks differ. And, similarly, all 
 organisms can be identified only if their com- 
 posing protoplasm can be identified. But when, 
 from indefinite generalizations, we descend to 
 definite particulars, this identification is found 
 to be impossible. 
 
 Mr. Huxley's entire theory may be summed 
 1 Dr. Stirling : "As Regards Protoplasm," p. 41. 
 
 K
 
 Scientific Sophisms. 137 
 
 up in two propositions: First, "That all animal 
 and vegetable organisms are essentially alike 
 in power, in form, and in substance ; " Second, 
 "That all vital and even intellectual functions 
 are the properties of the molecular disposition 
 and changes of the material basis (protoplasm) 
 of which the various animals and vegetables 
 consist." In both propositions the agent of 
 proof is this same alleged material basis of life, 
 or protoplasm. To establish the first, Mr. Hux- 
 ley endeavours to identify all organisms (animal 
 and vegetable) in protoplasm. To establish 
 the second, by means of inference from a simple 
 chemical analogy he assigns vitality, and even 
 intellect, to the molecular constituents of the 
 protoplasm, in connection with which they are 
 exhibited. 
 
 The second of these propositions has already 
 been examined and refuted. It has been shown 1 
 that life is not a property of protoplasm ; that 
 it is not a product of protoplasm } and that 
 vitality and protoplasm are not inseparable. 
 Be protoplasm what it may, vital and intel- 
 lectual functions are not the products of its 
 molecular constitution. 
 
 It is the first of these two propositions which 
 now remains to be examined. Is protoplasm, 
 1 In paragraphs 5, 6, 8, and 9, pp. 120-129.
 
 138 Protoplasm. 
 
 as alleged by Mr. Huxley, an actual life-matter, 
 everywhere identical in itself, and one which 
 consequently everywhere involves the identity 
 of all the various organs and organisms which 
 it is assumed to compose ? The bricks, says 
 Mr. Huxley, are the same because the clay is 
 the same. But is the clay the same ? Can it 
 be identified, as Mr. Huxley alleges, by a three- 
 fold unity of faculty, of form, of substance ? 
 
 To begin then with this simplest question, 
 that of substance. Are all samples of proto- 
 plasm identical, first, in their chemical composi- 
 tion, and, second, under the action of the various 
 re-agents ? This cannot be affirmed. And it is 
 against the affirmation of this that "we point 
 to the fact of much chemical difference obtaining 
 among the tissues, not only in the proportions 
 of their fundamental elements, but also in the 
 addition (and proportion as well) of such others 
 as chlorine, sulphur, phosphorus, potass, soda, 
 lime, magnesia, iron, etc. Vast differences 
 vitally must be legitimately assumed for tissues 
 that are so different chemically." x 
 
 As to the alleged unities of form and power 
 in protoplasm, according to Strieker, 2 " Proto- 
 
 1 Dr. Stirling : " As Regards Protoplasm," p. 29. 
 1 Whom Professor Huxley calls, " My valued friend Pro- 
 fessor Strieker." (" Yeast" in " Critiques and Addresses,"
 
 Scientific Sophisms. 139 
 
 plasm varies almost infinitely in consistence, 
 in shape, in structure, and in function. 
 
 " In consistence, it is sometimes so fluid as to be capa- 
 ble of forming in drops ; sometimes semi-fluid and 
 gelatinous ; sometimes of considerable resistance. __ In 
 shape for to Strieker the cells are now protoplasm we 
 have club-shaped protoplasm, globe-shaped protoplasm, 
 cup-shaped protoplasm, bottle-shaped protoplasm, spindle- 
 shaped protoplasm, branched, threaded, ciliated proto- 
 plasm, circle-headed protoplasm, flat, conical, cylindrical, 
 longitudinal, prismatic, polyhedral, and palisade-like 
 protoplasm. In structure, again, it is sometimes uniform 
 and sometimes reticulated into interspaces that contain 
 fluid. 
 
 " In function, lastly, some protoplasm is vagrant, and of 
 unknown use. Some again produces pepsine, and some 
 fat. Some at least contain pigment. Then there is 
 nerve-protoplasm, brain-protoplasm, bone-protoplasm, 
 muscle-protoplasm, and protoplasm of all the other tissues, 
 no one of which but produces its own kind, and is uninter- 
 changeable with the rest. Lastly, on this head, we have 
 to point to the overwhelming fact that there is the in- 
 finitely different protoplasm of the various infinitely dif- 
 ferent plants and animals, in each of which its own proto- 
 plasm, as in the case of the various tissues, but produces 
 its own kind, and is uninterchangeable with that of the 
 rest." > 
 
 The evidence in refutation of Mr. Huxley's 
 first proposition is thus seen to be overwhelm- 
 
 p. 89.) Strieker : with whom, says Dr. Stirling, " for the 
 production of his ' Handbuch,' there is associated every 
 great histological name in Germany." (Pref., p. 3.) 
 1 M As Regards Protoplasm," pp. 30, 31.
 
 140 Protoplasm. 
 
 ing. In view of the nature of microscopic 
 science ; in view of the results hitherto obtained 
 as regards nucleus, membrane, and entire cell , 
 even in- view of the supporters of protoplasm 
 itself; Mr. Huxley's assertion of a physical 
 matter of life is untenable. 1 But even if that 
 " matter of life " were granted, the reasons in- 
 numerable, and even irrefragable, would still 
 remain to compel us as now they do actually 
 compel us to acknowledge in it, not indeed the 
 " identity " now claimed, but rather " an infinite 
 diversity " in power, in form, and in substance. 
 No wonder that the bricks are not the same : 
 with this "infinite diversity" in the clay. 
 
 II. Nor is this fundamental diversity in any 
 way altered or diminished by the. convertibility 
 of which Mr. Huxley speaks. On the contrary, 
 that convertibility, as alleged by Mr. Huxley, 
 
 1 The position here maintained in. opposition to 
 Mr. Huxley is supported by an important dictum of 
 Professor Tyndall : " When the contents of a cell are de- 
 scribed as perfectly homogeneous, as absolutely structure- 
 less, because the microscope fails to distinguish any 
 structure, then I think the microscope begins to play a 
 mischievous part. A little consideration will make it 
 plain to all of you that the microscope can have no voice 
 in the real question of germ structure." Fragments of 
 Science: First Edition, p. 155.
 
 Scientific Sophisms. 
 
 establishes, the antecedent diversity. If the 
 diversity were non-existent, there would be no 
 room for the alleged process of convertibility. 
 And yet, as used by him, this same convertibility 
 is employed to stamp protoplasm (and with it 
 life and intellect) into an indifferent identity. 
 In order that there may be "no break" between 
 the lowest functions and the highest between 
 the functions of the fungus and the functions 
 of man he has "endeavoured to prove," he 
 tells us, that the protoplasm of the lowest 
 organisms is "essentially identical with, and 
 most readily converted into that of any animal." l 
 And on this alleged reciprocal convertibility of 
 protoplasm he founds an inference of identity, 
 as well as of the further conclusion that the 
 functions of the highest, not less than of the 
 lowest animals, are but the molecular manifesta- 
 tions of the protoplasm which is common to all. 
 " Is this alleged reciprocal convertibility true, 
 then ? Is it true that every organism can digest 
 every other organism, and that thus a relation 
 of identity is established between that which 
 digests and whatever is digested ? 
 
 " These questions place Mr. Huxley's general enterprise, 
 perhaps, in the most glaring light yet ; for it is very evident 
 
 1 "Lay Sermons," p. 138.
 
 142 Protoplasm. 
 
 that there is an end of the argument if all foods and all 
 feeders are essentially identical both with themselves and 
 with each other. The facts of the case, however, I be- 
 lieve to be too well known to require a single word here 
 on my part. It is not long since Mr. Huxley himself 
 pointed out the great difference between the foods of 
 plants and the foods of animals ; and the reader may be 
 safely left to think for himself of ruminantia and car- 
 niTJora, of soft bills and hard bills, of molluscs and men. 
 Mr. Huxley talks feelingly of the possibility of himself 
 feeding the lobster quite as much as of the lobster feeding 
 him ; but such pathos is not always applicable : it is not 
 likely that a sponge would be to the stomach of Mr. 
 Huxley any more than Mr. Huxley would be to the 
 stomach of a sponge. 
 
 " But a more important point is this, that the 
 functions themselves remain quite apart from 
 the alleged convertibility. We can neither 
 acquire the functions of what we eat, nor impart 
 our functions to what eats us. We shall not 
 come to fly by feeding on vultures, nor they 
 to speak by feeding on us. No possible manure 
 of human brains will enable a corn-field to 
 reason. But if functions are inconvertible, the 
 convertibility of protoplasm is idle. In this 
 inconvertibility, indeed, functions will be seen 
 to be independent of mere chemical composition. 
 And that is the truth : for function there is 
 more required than either chemistiy or physics." 1 
 
 1 Dr. Stirling : " As Regards Protoplasm," p. 50.
 
 Scientific Sophisms. 143 
 
 12. As of the bricks, then, so of the clay : it 
 is not identical, and it is not convertible. But 
 Evolution dies hard, and Mr. Huxley in the 
 last resort falls back upon protoplasm "variously 
 modified" But where are we to begin, not to 
 have modified protoplasm? Mr. Huxley begins 
 with the sting of the nettle, but even there the 
 protoplasm is already modified ; and we have 
 the authority of Rindfleisch for asserting that 
 "in every different tissue we must look for 
 a different initial term of the productive 
 series." 
 
 Besides : there are in protoplasm generic or 
 specific differences ; differences not merely of 
 degree, but of kind. Some of these are indicated 
 by Mr. Huxley himself, when he tells us that 
 plants alone are capable of assimilating inorganic 
 matter ; while animals assimilate organic matter 
 only. Others must be admitted " for the over- 
 whelming reason that an infinitude of various 
 
 
 
 kinds exist in it, each of which is self-productive 
 and uninterchangeable with the rest." Brain- 
 protoplasm is not bone-protoplasm, nor the 
 protoplasm of the fungus the protoplasm of 
 man. " If the cornea of the eye and the enamel 
 of the teeth are alike but modified protoplasm, 
 we must be pardoned for thinking more of the 
 adjective than of the substantive. Our wonder
 
 144 Protoplasm. 
 
 is how, for one idea, protoplasm could become 
 one thing here, and, for another idea, another 
 so different thing there. We are more curious 
 abnut the modification than the protoplasm. 
 In the difference, rather than in the identity, 
 it is indeed that the wonder lies. 
 
 " Here are several thousand pieces of proto- 
 plasm ; analysis can detect no difference in 
 them. They are to us, let us say, as they are 
 to Mr. Huxley, identical in power, in form, and 
 in substance ; and yet on all these several thou- 
 sand little bits of apparently indistinguishable 
 matter an element of difference so pervading 
 and so persistent has been impressed, that of 
 them all, not one is interchangeable with 
 another! Each seed feeds its own kind. The 
 protoplasm of the gnat will no more grow into 
 the fly than it will grow into an elephant. 
 Protoplasm is protoplasm ; yes, but man's 
 protoplasm is man's protoplasm, and the mush- 
 room's the mushroom's." 1 The difference is 
 one of kind, not of degree ; and that difference 
 the word " modification," though it may indeed 
 sometimes conceal, will never be able to 
 efface. 
 
 13. In closing this brief review of Mr. Huxley's 
 1 "As Regards Protoplasm," p. 58.
 
 Scientific Sophisms. 145 
 
 doctrine, it will be found not unimportant to 
 notice some particulars which characterise Mr. 
 Huxley's own position in relation to it. Fore- 
 most among these is the nomenclature which 
 Mr. Huxley has chosen to employ. 
 
 The protoplasmic pellicle, "the formative 
 protoplasmic layer " in vegetable cells, was re- 
 garded by Von Mohl as a structure of special 
 importance, distinct from the cell-contents, and 
 was named by him, in 1844, "the primordial 
 utricle." This primordial utricle has since been 
 called protoplasm by Professor Huxley, although 
 some years previously he had restricted the term 
 protoplasm to the matter within the primordial 
 utricle, which matter he at that time regarded 
 as nothing more than an " accidental anatomical 
 modification " of the endoplast, and of little 
 importance. 1 " The nucleus, and~ with it the 
 protoplasm, Mr. Huxley thought, exerted no 
 peculiar office, and possessed no metabolic power. 
 But Mr. Huxley has changed his views without 
 one word of explanation concerning the facts 
 which led him to modify them, or even an ac- 
 knowledgment that he had changed them. Mr. 
 Huxley now considers ' protoplasm ' of the first 
 importance. . . . His ' endoplast ' and 'peri- 
 
 1 " The Cell Theory :" Medical Chirurgical Review, 
 October, 1853.
 
 146 Protoplasm* 
 
 plastic substance '. of 1853 together constitute 
 his ' protoplasm ' of 1 869." * 
 
 14. "In order to convince people that the 
 actions of living beings are not due to any 
 mysterious vitality or vital force or power, but 
 are in fact physical and chemical in their nature, 
 Professor Huxley gives to matter which is alive, 
 to matter which is dead, and to matter which is 
 completely changed by tJie process of roasting or 
 boiling, the very same name. 'Mutton con- 
 tained protoplasm of the same nature as was 
 found in every living thing.' ' As he spoke, he 
 was wasting his stock of protoplasm, but he 
 had the power of making it up again by draw- 
 ing upon the protoplasm of some other animal 
 say a sheep. (Laughter.)' The matter of sheep 
 and mutton and man and lobster and egg is 
 the same, and, according to Huxley, one may 
 be transubstantiated into the other. But how ? 
 By ' subtle influences,' and ' under sundry cir- 
 cumstances,' answers this authority. And all 
 these things alive, or dead, or dead and roasted, 
 he tells us are made of protoplasm, and he 
 affirms this protoplasm is the pJiysical basis of 
 
 1 "Protoplasm; or Matter and Life." By Lionel S. 
 Beale, M.B.,F.R.S. Third Edition. London : Churchill, 
 1874, pp. 90, 91.
 
 Scientific Sophisms. ' 147 
 
 life, or the basis of physical life. 1 But is it not 
 hard that the discoverer of ' subtle influences ' 
 should laugh at the fiction of ' vitality ' / By 
 calling thfngs which differ from one another in 
 many qualities by the same name, Huxley seems 
 to think he can annihilate distinctions, enforce 
 identity, and sweep away the difficulties which 
 have impeded the progress of previous philo- 
 sophers in their search after unity. Plants and 
 worms and men are all protoplasm, and proto- 
 plasm is albuminous matter, and albuminous 
 matter consists of four elements, and these 
 four elements possess certain properties, by 
 which properties all differences between plants 
 and worms and men are to be accounted for. 
 Although Huxley would probably admit that a 
 worm was not a man, he would tell us that by 
 ' subtle influences ' and ' under sundry circum- 
 stances,' the one thing might be easily con- 
 verted into the other, and not by such non- 
 sensical fictions as ' vitality/ which can neither 
 be weighed, measured, nor conceived. But, in 
 
 1 [Note by Dr. Beale :] The heading of his lecture as 
 published in The Scotsman for November 9, 1868, is " The 
 Bases of Physical Life," while his communication in The 
 Fortnightly, February i, 1 869, referred to by him as this 
 same lecture, is entitled " The Physical Basis of Life." 
 The iron basis of the candle, and the basis of the iron 
 candle, are expressions evidently interchangeable.
 
 1 48 Protoplasm. 
 
 science, it is not fair to indulge in word-tricks 
 and equivocal illustrations, nor is it justifiable 
 to make use of misleading similes." 1 
 
 15. "I think Professor Huxley is the first 
 observer who has spoken of the cell in its 
 entirety as a mass of protoplasm, and the only 
 one who has ever asserted that any tissue in 
 nature is composed throughout of matter which 
 can properly be regarded as one in kind. This 
 view is quite irreconcilable with many facts, 
 some of which have been alluded to by Mr. 
 Huxley himself. I doubt if in the whole range 
 of modern science it would be possible to find 
 an assertion more at variance with facts familiar 
 to physiologists than the statement that ' beast 
 and fowl, reptile and fish, mollusc, worm, and 
 polype,' are composed of ' masses of protoplasm 
 with a nucleus,' unless it be that still more 
 extravagant assertion that what is ordinarily 
 termed a cell or elementary part is a mass of 
 protoplasm ; for can anything be more unlike the 
 semi-fluid, active, moving matter of amoeba pro- 
 toplasm, than the hard, dry, passive, external 
 part of a cuticular cell or of an elementary 
 part of bone ?" 8 
 
 1 Dr. Beale's " Protoplasm," ut sup., pp. 95, 96. 
 Ibid., pp. 97, 98.
 
 Scientific Sophisms. 149 
 
 " Huxley makes no difference between dead and living 
 and roasted matter, and he confuses together the living 
 thing, the stuff upon which it feeds, and the things formed 
 by it, or which result from its death. A muscle is pro- 
 toplasm ; nerve is protoplasm ; a limb is protoplasm ; 
 the whole body is protoplasm, and of course bone, hair, 
 shell, etc., are as much 'the physical basis of life' as 
 albuminous matter and roast mutton. But surely it would 
 be less incorrect to speak of such 'protoplasms' as the 
 physical basis of death or the physical basis of roast than 
 to call dead and roasted matter the physical basis of life. 
 . . . Huxley says lobster-protoplasm may be converted 
 into human protoplasm, and the latter again turned into 
 living lobster. But the statement is incorrect, because 
 in the process of assimilation what was once ' protoplasm ' 
 is entirely disintegrated, and is not converted into the 
 new tissue in the form of protoplasm at all ; and I must 
 remark that sheep cannot be transubstantiated into man, 
 even by ' subtle influences/ nor can dead protoplasm be 
 converted into living protoplasm, or a dead sheep into a 
 living man. And what is gained by calling the matter 
 of dead roast mutton and that of a living growing sheep 
 by the same name ? If the last is the physical basis of 
 life, one does not see how the first can be so too, unless 
 roast mutton and living sheep are identical." l 
 
 Plain-speaking, this of Dr. Beale's ; but its 
 irresistible force is found in the well-earned 
 celebrity of its author " the foremost micro- 
 scopist of the English-speaking world." * 
 
 1 Dr. Beale's " Protoplasm," ut sup,, pp. 100, 101. 
 
 8 " Beale's protoplasmic theory now takes the place of 
 the cell theory. General opinion is now in accord, as 
 respects the facts, with Dr. Beale's statements on the
 
 1 50 Protoplasm. 
 
 16. "It is significant that Huxley himself, 
 some sixteen years ago, drew a distinction be- 
 tween living and non-living matter, which he 
 now, without any explanation, utterly ignores. 
 He remarked that the stone, the gas, the crystal, 
 had an inertia, and tended to remain as they 
 were unless some external influence affected 
 them ; but that living things were characterised 
 by the very opposite tendencies. He referred 
 also to 'the faculty of pursuing their own 
 course ' and the 'inherent law of change in living 
 beings.' In 1853, the same authority actually 
 found fault with those who attempted to reduce 
 life to ' mere attractions and repulsions,' and 
 'considered physiology simply as a complex 
 branch of mere physics.' He also remarked 
 that 'vitality is a property inherent in certain 
 kinds of matter.' " * Now, however, as we have 
 seen, there is but one kind of matter, " variously 
 modified ; " and " vitality " has no better status 
 than " aquosity ! " 
 
 17. Nor is it less "significant" to note Mr. 
 Huxley's various, though incidental admissions, 
 and to contrast them with the dogmatism of his 
 
 nucleus in 1860." (Dr. John Drysdale : "Protoplasmic 
 Theory of Life." London, 1874.) 
 1 Dr. Beale : / sup., p. 101.
 
 Scientific Sophisms. 151 
 
 mere assertions. We look for certainty and find 
 only probability : eg., " It is more than probable 
 that when the vegetable world is thoroughly 
 explored we shall find all plants in possession 
 of the same powers." The premises then have 
 still to be collected ; and yet the conclusion has 
 been confidently proclaimed. Compare this 
 " more than probable " vaticination concerning 
 vegetables with the positive assertion "that 
 the powers of ALL the different forms of living 
 things were substantially one, that their forms 
 were substantially one, and, finally, that their 
 composition was also substantially one." J Again, 
 he says, " So far as the conditions of the mani- 
 festations of the phenomena of contractility have 
 yet been studied." Now this " so far " is not 
 " yet " by any means " very far." But what is 
 meant by " the manifestations, j>f the phe- 
 nomena"? The manifestations are the phe- 
 nomena! and they completely refute Mr. 
 Huxley's latest theory. Again, we hear that 
 it is "the rule rather than the exception," or 
 that " weighty authorities have suggested" that 
 such and such things " probably occur," or, while 
 contemplating the nettle-sting, that such "pos- 
 sible complexity " in other cases " dawns upon 
 one." On other occasions he admits that 
 1 Scotsman, November 9, 1868.
 
 1 5 2 Protoplasm. 
 
 " perhaps it would not yet be safe to say that 
 all forms," etc. Nay, not only does he directly 
 say that " it is by no means his intention to 
 suggest that there is no difference between the 
 lowest plant and the highest, or between plants 
 and animals," but he directly proves what he 
 says, for he demonstrates in plants and animals 
 an essential difference of power. Plants can 
 assimilate inorganic matters, animals can 
 not, etc, 
 
 18. "Mr. Huxley's ideas as to the composition 
 of protoplasm have already been noticed, and it 
 has been shown that they are clearly opposed 
 to the known facts of science. Here a simple 
 alternative presents itself ; either Mr. Huxley is 
 familiar with the elementary facts of organic 
 chemistry, In which case he would be aware of 
 the impossibility of such a composition ; or he 
 Is not so, on which supposition it was at least 
 indiscreet to found an important practical 
 doctrine like that of human automatism on a 
 purely fanciful chemical theory. Which alter- 
 native is to be adopted may perhaps receive 
 some illustration from a parallel passage in 
 the essay ' On the Formation of Coal,' l 
 
 1 " Critiques and Addresses," pp. 109, I NX 
 
 L
 
 Scientific Sophisms. 153 
 
 where, referring to the burning of coal, it is 
 said : 
 
 " ' Heat comes out of it, light comes out of it, and if 
 we could gather together all that goes up the chimney, 
 and all that remains in the grate of a thoroughly-burnt 
 coal-fire, we should find ourselves in possession of a 
 quantity of carbonic acid, water, ammonia, and mineral 
 matters, exactly equal in weight to the coal ! ' 
 
 " It requires but the most elementary ac- 
 quaintance with the subject to recognise that 
 the 'quantity' of these products would be at 
 least twice, probably thrice, as great as the 
 original weight of the coal. A due considera- 
 tion and comparison of these facts will enable 
 the reader to estimate at its true value the 
 science from which such stupendous consequences 
 are so confidently deduced." 1 
 
 19. " How such doctrines came to be received 
 can only be accounted for in Professor Huxley's 
 own words when treating on some other an- 
 tagonistic 'teaching,' which he says was only 
 ' tolerable on account of the ignorance of those 
 by whom it was accepted.' Referring to some 
 anatomical question, he says further that ' it 
 would, in fact, be unworthy of serious refutation, 
 
 1 Dr. Elam : "Automatism and Evolution;" Contempo- 
 rary Review , October, 1876, pp. 729, 730.
 
 154 Protoplasm. 
 
 except for the general and natural belief that 
 deliberate and reiterated assertions must have 
 some foundation.' J It is by this time tolerably 
 clear that Professor Huxley's ' Chemistry of 
 Life' has no foundation except that of 'deli- 
 berate and reiterated assertion.'' " 3 
 
 But " if such be the case with the chemistry, 
 what is to be said for the argument founded 
 upon it, or attached to it if, indeed, argument 
 it can be called ? " It has now been tried, 
 and found wanting, in every particular. It is 
 condemned by its own admissions. It is con- 
 demned by the magnitude of its assumptions. 
 It is condemned by its antagonism to notorious 
 facts, and its violation of established principles. 
 And the sentence which has followed condem- 
 nation is not less just than severe : 
 
 "I cannot more appropriately conclude this 
 notice of the doctrine of ' The Physical Basis of 
 Life,' than with an extract from the author's 
 own anthology of criticism, where, 8 speaking of 
 the theory of creation, he says : 
 
 " ' That such verbal hocus-pocus should be received as 
 
 1 " Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature," p. 85. 
 
 * Dr. Elam: Contemporary Review, September, 1876, 
 
 P. 555- 
 
 * Professor Huxley's " Lay Sermons," p. 285.
 
 Scientific Sophisms. 155 
 
 science will one day be regarded as evidence of the low 
 state of intelligence in the nineteenth century, just as we 
 amuse ourselves with the phraseology about nature's 
 abhorrence of a vacuum, wherewith Torricelli's compatriots 
 were satisfied to explain the rise of water in a pump.' " l 
 
 1 Dr. Elaia: Contemporary Review t October, 1876 : p. 
 733.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE THREE BEGINNINGS. 
 
 " GIVE me matter," said Kant, " and I will ex- 
 plain the formation of a world ; but give me 
 matter only, and I cannot explain the formation 
 of a caterpillar." This dictum is widely different 
 from that of Professor Tyndall, who discerns in 
 matter alone "the promise and potency of all 
 terrestrial life." To the same effect is his 
 eulogium on the Italian philosopher, Giordano 
 Bruno, of whom he tells us 1 that " he came to 
 the conclusion that Nature in her productions 
 does not imitate the technic of man. Her pro- 
 cess is one of unravelling and unfolding. The 
 infinity of forms under which matter appears 
 were not imposed upon it by an external 
 artificer ; by its own intrinsic force and virtue 
 it brings these forms forth. Matter is not the 
 mere naked, empty capacity which philosophers 
 have pictured her to be, but the universal 
 
 1 " Belfast Address," pp. 19, 20.
 
 Scientific Sophisms. 157 
 
 mother who brings forth all things as the fruit 
 of her own womb." 
 
 In this opinion, Bruno' and his eulogist are 
 at one. In his controversy with Mr. Martineau, 
 a year after the delivery of the Belfast Ad- 
 dress, Dr. Tyndall credits "pure matter with 
 the astonishing building power displayed in 
 crystals and trees." l He " figures " to himself 
 the embryological growth of the babe, and its 
 " appearance in due time, a living miracle, with 
 all its organs and all their implications." He 
 dilates, justly and forcibly, on the wonders of 
 eye and ear : the eye " with its lens, and its 
 humours, and its miraculous retina behind ; " 
 the ear " with its tympanum, cochlea, and Corti's 
 organ an instrument of three thousand strings, 
 built adjacent to the brain, and employed by 
 it to sift, separate, and interpret, antecedent to 
 all consciousness, the sonorous tremors of the ex- 
 ternal world. All this has been accomplished," 
 the ells us, "not only without man's con- 
 trivance, but without his knowledge, the secret 
 of his own organization having been withheld 
 from him since his birth in the immeasurable 
 past, until the other day." And then he adds, 
 "Matter I define as that mysterious thing by 
 
 1 u Materialism and its Opponents," p. 594.
 
 158 The Three Beginnings. 
 
 which all this is accomplished." 1 No wonder 
 then that Bruno should be lauded for his 
 " closer " approximation " to our present line of 
 thought." 8 
 
 But this expression "our present line of 
 thought " is suggestive, and throws us back on 
 a previous passage in the Address, in which we 
 are told that " to construct the universe in idea 
 it was necessary to have some notion of its 
 constituent parts of what Lucretius subse- 
 quently called the ' First Beginnings.' " s 
 
 The "First Beginnings!" What has "our 
 present line of thought " to say on these ? We 
 shall do well to question it 
 
 And, to begin at the beginning, we shall do 
 well to note not merely the order, but the fact 
 here admitted. There was no matter when 
 an actual Beginning : a first start ; distinct, 
 definite. Antecedently, there was a prior time, 
 when this first start had not been made. The 
 process of Evolution, a " process of unravelling 
 and unfolding," is a process which then had not 
 begun. It is therefore not eternal It had a 
 beginning. But who began it ? 
 
 1 " Materialism and its Opponents," p. 598. 
 "Belfast Address," p. 19. 
 . 2.
 
 Scientific Sophisms, 159 
 
 You postulate "Matter." But in so doing 
 you are hypothecating a substance which before 
 the " First Beginning " had not begun to be. 
 How did it originate ? Unable to answer that 
 question, you make another assumption. You 
 postulate "eternity" for that "matter" of whose 
 origin you can give no account. But this ac- 
 cumulation of postulates will not help you. 
 What is this matter which impelled by the 
 exigencies of Agnostic Evolution you assume 
 to have been self-originated ? Make its essence 
 what you will extension, with Descartes ; or 
 palpableness, with Fechner Matter is always, 
 and is manifestly, the local lodgment, the objec- 
 tive manifestation, of Power. " The withered 
 leaf is not dead and lost, there are Forces in it 
 and around it, though working in inverse order ; 
 else how could it rot?" 1 Matter, Force, Motion, 
 are not unknown to Science ; but of matter self- 
 originated and self-sustained, of matter self- 
 existent and therefore eternal ; of self-originated 
 force, or self-originated motion ; of all these 
 throughout the realm of the inorganic world, 
 Science knows nothing. 
 
 When therefore we have granted "the eternity 
 of matter," the theory of Evolution is as far as 
 
 1 Carlyle : " Sartor Resartus," book i. chap. xi. p. 43.
 
 160 The Three Beginnings. 
 
 ever from being able to make a "beginning." 
 That theory requires not merely matter, but 
 matter in motion. Not merely matter in mass, 
 but matter in its constituent atoms. Matter so 
 minutely subdivided as to be immeasurably 
 beyond the sphere of visibility ; and yet matter 
 not within the sphere of infinite divisibi- 
 lity. "The atoms " are " the first beginnings." l 
 But speculation is at fault as to the mode in 
 which, or the power by which, they "first began." 
 In his panegyric on Lucretius, Professor Tyndall 
 draws special attention to his " strong scientific 
 imagination ; " 3 and tells us that " his vaguely 
 grand conception of the atoms falling eternally 
 through space suggested the nebular hypothesis 
 to Kant, its first propounder." 3 The "eternity" 
 of these falling atoms, however, must not be 
 confounded with the antecedent " eternity " of 
 their origination. Like the " eternity " of the 
 rhetorical preacher, 4 it has its own statute of 
 limitations. It came to an end. While it 
 lasted there might have been seen, " far beyond 
 the limits of our visible world" (by aid of a 
 
 "Belfast Address,"?. 8. 
 Ibid, p. 9. 
 
 3 Ibid., p. 10. 
 
 4 Eternity : " An infinite candle ; lighted at both
 
 Scientific Sophisms. 
 
 "strong scientific imagination"), "atoms in- 
 numerable," " falling silently through im- 
 measurable intervals of time and space." l 
 
 " Falling eternally through space : " " falling 
 silently through immeasurable intervals : " but 
 this eternal silence was broken by "great 
 shocks of sound," " the mechanical shock of 
 the atoms ; " l and this eternal falling came to 
 an end when " the interaction of the atoms " a 
 came to a beginning. How came that be- 
 ginning ? Nothing more simple. At first, 
 the atoms, silently falling, fell in parallel 
 lines. After that they began to deflect from 
 the perpendicular. Not all of them ; nor all 
 in the same direction : but only so many, 
 and in so many directions as were necessary 
 to produce " the mechanical shock," and " the 
 interaction." But falling is motion, and matter 
 is inert, and atoms in motion are atoms in 
 which inertness has been overcome by a force 
 external to themselves, and falling atoms are 
 atoms gravitating towards a centre. What 
 centre ? and how originated ? Why should 
 atoms in motion have moved originally all 
 in one direction ? or why should they have 
 ceased to do so ? What, and whence, is that 
 
 " Belfast Address," p. 10. . IMa., p. &
 
 1 62 The Three Beginnings. 
 
 Force which first moved them, which moved 
 them in parallel lines, which deflected them 
 from the perpendicular, as assumed by the 
 hypothesis ? 
 
 "It is certain," according to "the doctrine 
 of Evolution," " that the existing world lay, 
 potentially, in the cosmic vapour." But where 
 it lay before the cosmic vapour existed, de- 
 ponent saith not. "The fundamental pro- 
 position of Evolution " is, as we have seen, 
 " that the whole world, living and not living, is 
 the result of the mutual interaction, according 
 to definite laws, of the fo'rces possessed by the 
 molecules of which the primitive nebulosity of 
 the universe was composed." l Fundamental, 
 however, as Professor Huxley declares it to be, 
 it is very far indeed from " The First Begin- 
 ning." 
 
 This " nebulosity was composed " of certain 
 " molecules." But nebulosity is a state or con- 
 dition ; not a substance. Like the rigidity of 
 an iron bar, or the malleability of gold-leaf, 
 or the ductility of copper wire, " nebulosity " 
 is a word not of matter, but of mode. It 
 denotes a property, or it specifies a condition ; 
 but it does not distinguish, still less does it 
 
 1 Professor Huxley : " Critiques and Addresses," p. 305.
 
 Scientific Sophisms. 163 
 
 define, a substance. It is characteristic of 
 unintelligible hypotheses, not less than of 
 " cosmic gas." In this instance, however, let 
 it pass. We will not say that it was " caused," 
 that word might lead us back in the search 
 for a vera causa to a " fi^st beginning," 
 but only that it was "composed." We will 
 not even inquire who " composed " it And 
 yet, if it were permitted us to inquire at all, 
 we might perhaps be excused for asking, 
 How do you know that this nebulosity was 
 " primitive " ? or that its constituent " molecules " 
 were " possessed " of forces ? or that these 
 forces were controlled by " definite laws " ? or 
 that the relation between them was that of 
 " mutual interaction " ? or " that the whole 
 world, living and not living," the molecules 
 themselves included, " is the result " solely 
 and exclusively of the "mutual interaction" 
 which you have imagined ? 
 
 What a tissue of conjectures is here And 
 yet all this is assumed as " certain," and is 
 postulated as "the fundamental proposition of 
 Evolution." 
 
 But now, suppose it certain : what then ? 
 It leaves us as far as ever from a knowledge 
 of "the first beginnings." It tells us of 
 " forces " controlled by " definite laws." But if
 
 164 The Three Beginnings. 
 
 it tells us truly, then the law is the controlling 
 Power, and has a priority over the powers 
 controlled. Then "the forces possessed by the 
 molecules" were at best subordinate and se- 
 condary: the "definite laws" alone were 
 primary and supreme. But laws never make 
 themselves. Who made these ? and who made 
 them thus distinctly " definite " ? 
 
 But even their definiteness is not greater 
 than their complexity. And this complexity 
 immeasurably beyond our power of explora- 
 tion is everywhere adjusted to the attainment 
 of a common end. Who originated a com- 
 plexity so intricate, yet so illimitable ? Who 
 established this unvarying adjustment of it in 
 the very " first beginning " ? For we are now 
 asked to imagine space filled with a frictionless 
 fluid ; to suppose that some portions of this 
 fluid did somewhere, somehow, by some means, 
 at some time or other, become " rotational ; " 
 and that having by rotation gained rigidity, 
 they can now, by the latest triumphs of hydro- 
 dynamics, be " proved " to be indivisible and 
 indestructible. Let it be granted. Granted 
 that light, heat, sound, electricity, magnetism, are 
 molecular movements mutually transmutable ; 
 that arrested molar movement displays itself 
 as molecular movement ; that the pressure of
 
 Scientific Sophisms. 165 
 
 a gas is due to the varying motion of its 
 molecules impinging on the walls of the vessel 
 that contains it ; that the rigidity, or space- 
 occupying power of matter, is due to the 
 formation of vortices in a frictionless ether, and 
 that each vortex-atom is thenceforth inde- 
 structible ; when the reality of the conceptions 
 thus assumed has been granted, then by exactly 
 so much has the absolute necessity been in- 
 creased of assigning at "the first beginning" 
 a First Cause, equal not only to the origina- 
 tion of Matter and of Force, but equal to the 
 origination of matter thus constituted, and of 
 force thus adjusted. 
 
 Evolution is thus seen to be the measure 
 of Involution. Whatever has been evolved 
 in the Effect was previously involved in the 
 Cause. To deny this is to affirm that the effect 
 may transcend the cause. If therefore though 
 in utter contempt of scientific verity we were 
 to resolve all chemical forces into forces. me- 
 chanical, all life into chemistry, and the infinite 
 diversity of living beings into mere variety in 
 the play of molecular forces, ultimately resolving 
 itself into a motion or motions of the universal 
 ether, we should simply have increased by 
 so much our previous estimate of the Power 
 which at the "first beginning" was able
 
 1 66 The Three Beginnings. 
 
 thus "potentially" to endow "the cosmic 
 vapour." 
 
 Matter, Force, Order, Law, Diversity in 
 Unity, Concord in Complexity : they are all 
 known to us, but not one of them is known 
 as self-originated. Distinct in character, defi- 
 nite in operation, invariable in result : who made 
 them so ? You trace " the whole world, living 
 and not living," to certain " properties " of Mat- 
 ter, acted upon by certain capacities of Force, 
 operating in an invariable Order, under the reign 
 of Law. You do well. Pursue your induction 
 to " The First Beginnings." Whence came those 
 " properties " of matter ? those capacities of 
 force ? Order could not regulate them before 
 Matter received them. Could Matter create 
 them? Through all the "immeasurable inter- 
 vals of time and space," Matter has never 
 created one single atom. Causa causarum: 
 what was that ? Whatever it was, you will not 
 be ctble to ignore it, except by refusing to go 
 back to " The First Beginning." 
 
 That " first " beginning was followed by a 
 second. Immovably based on the deep founda- 
 tions of the inorganic world, there rises every- 
 where, elaborate and multifarious, the myste- 
 rious superstructure of organization and Life. 
 
 M
 
 Scientific Sophisms. 167 
 
 No conclusion of modern science is more 
 widely received or more confidently maintained 
 than that which teaches that in the early history 
 of our planet life was unknown. Not only was 
 it not actual : it was not possible. Life f hen 
 was not. But now life is. Life, then, had a 
 beginning. What was that beginning ? And 
 whence ? 
 
 " If," says Professor Huxley, 1 " the hypo- 
 thesis of Evolution be true, living matter must 
 have arisen from not-living matter, for, by the 
 hypothesis, the condition of the globe was at one 
 time such that living matter could not have 
 existed on it, life being entirely incompatible 
 with the gaseous state." And he adds that, 
 even if we adopt Sir William Thomson's theory, 
 that life on this planet may have been derived 
 from life on some other, the difficulty of 
 accounting for its origination is as great as 
 ever. For the nebular theory, which is a part 
 of the hypothesis of Evolution, asserts that all 
 the worlds were once in " the gaseous state." 
 
 "But," he continues, "living matter once 
 originated, there is no necessity for another 
 origination, since the hypothesis postulates the 
 unlimited, though perhaps not indefinite, 
 modifiability of such matter." Waiving, for 
 1 Encyclopedia Britannica, Article "Biology."
 
 1 68 The Three Beginnings. 
 
 the present, the "unlimited modifiability " 
 thus postulated, it is important to observe 
 the profound significance of the admission here 
 made. " Living matter once originated : " yes, 
 but how ? To that crucial question, the answer, 
 on the same high authority, is given in these 
 words : " Of the causes which have led to the 
 origination of living matter, it may be said that 
 we know absolutely nothing." " The present 
 state of knowledge furnishes us with no link 
 between the living and the not-living." l But 
 however inscrutable the mode, there is no ques- 
 tion nor any room for question as to the fact. 
 " Living matter " was " once originated" Life 
 had a Beginning. 
 
 Impenetrable, however, as is the veil which 
 hides from our observation the origin of Life, 
 still more inscrutable is the mystery which 
 shrouds the first emergence of the self-conscious 
 Mind. 
 
 Mr. John Stuart Mill admits the existence of 
 the mind in the form of a " thread of conscious- 
 ness," " aware of itself as past and future," and 
 possessing a conviction of the simultaneous 
 existence of other "threads of consciousness" 
 and of numerous permanent possibilities of 
 1 Encyclopaedia Britannica^ Article " Biology."
 
 Scientific Sophisms. 1 69 
 
 sensation. 1 And Professor Huxley asks, " Is 
 our knowledge of anything we know or feel 
 more or less than a knowledge of states of 
 consciousness ? " " And," he adds, " our whole 
 life is made up of such states." 3 And again, 
 in the same connection, he tells us of that 
 " highest degree of certainty which is given by 
 immediate consciousness." 
 
 But what then is this consciousness ? and 
 whence ? Professor Huxley's language on the 
 subject is particularly confident, although at 
 present it is merely prophetic. " I hold," he 
 says, "with the materialist, that the human body, 
 like all living bodies, is a machine, all the opera- 
 tions of which will sooner or later be ex- 
 plained upon physical principles." And again : 
 " I believe that we shall arrive at a mechanical 
 equivalent of consciousness, just as we have 
 arrived at a mechanical equivalent of heat." 8 
 But the vaticinatory character of these opinions 
 is their least remarkable feature. Professor 
 Huxley " holds " that all living things are 
 machines, and " believes " that " thought is as 
 much a function of matter as motion is ;" 
 but, as Dr. Beale observes, "of evidence in 
 
 1 Mill upon Hamilton, p. 212. 
 
 t " J,ay Sermons : " Descartes, p. 359. 
 
 ' Macmillaiis Magazine, vol. xxii. p. 78.
 
 170 The Three Beginnings. 
 
 support of these beliefs there is none that will 
 bear investigation, none that would convince 
 any reasonable being." " Such opinions and 
 beliefs on the mechanics of life and thought 
 are certainly very striking, but it is remarkable 
 that no one who entertains them has considered 
 it necessary to adduce facts or arguments in 
 their support. The mechanical theory of life 
 and' consciousness rests upon authority whose 
 utterances are dogmatic and not dependent upon 
 reason, fact, observation, and experiment." l 
 
 Widely different is the language of Mr. 
 Herbert Spencer, and of Professor Tyndall, 
 in which we are assured that "our states of 
 consciousness are mere symbols of an outside 
 entity which produces them and determines the 
 order of their succession, but the real nature of 
 which we can never know." 3 It must not be 
 concealed however that, after all, Professor 
 Tyndall does not differ from Professor Huxley 
 more widely than Professor Huxley differs from 
 himself. It is not always that he indulges in 
 prophetic imaginings of " a mechanical equiva- 
 lent of consciousness." When, as above quoted, 
 he tells us of what he "holds" "with the 
 materialist," we have only to turn to his " Phy- 
 
 1 " Protoplasm ; or Matter and Life." 1874. P. 119. 
 "Belfast Address," p. 57.
 
 Scientific Sophisms. 171 
 
 siology " to find materials for the utter refuta- 
 tion of materialism. 
 
 " We class," he says, " sensations along with 
 emotions, and volitions, and thoughts, under the 
 common head of states of consciousness. But 
 what consciousness is, we know not ; and how 
 it is that anything so remarkable as a state 
 of consciousness comes about as the result of 
 irritating nervous tissue is just as unaccount- 
 able as the appearance of the Djin when Alad- 
 din rubbed his lamp in the story." 1 
 
 " Some," says Dr. Beale, " have taught that 
 mind transcends life, and life transcends che- 
 mistry, just as chemical affinity transcends me- 
 chanics. But no one has proved, and no one 
 can prove, that mind and life are in any way 
 related to chemistry and mechanics." 2 Even if 
 the step from mechanics to chemistry had been 
 admitted as ascertained and proved, it would 
 still remain true that the step from chemistry 
 to life is a mere unsupported assumption ; an 
 assumption "without the slightest reason." 
 
 " How any material impressions should awake 
 thought ; but, still more, how, in independence of 
 all impressions, thought should be all the while 
 there, alive and active, a world by itself that 
 
 1 P. 193- 
 
 * " Protoplasm," p. 299,
 
 172 The Three Beginnings. 
 
 is the mystery." And that mystery no scalpel, 
 no microscope, will ever explain. " Mechanical 
 balances the most delicate, chemical tests the 
 most sensitive, are all powerless there. And 
 why ? Simply because consciousness arid they 
 are incommensurable : of another nature, of 
 another world from the first, sundered from 
 each other by the whole diameter of being." 
 
 But whence came this "other world," this 
 new " incommensurable " ? and whence the 
 "great gulf," the impassable chasm, which 
 marks the new beginning ? Mens agitat 
 molem ; but that implies for Mens a special 
 nature, a special relation, and a special origin. 
 What was that origin ? and whence ? 
 
 Whatever its source, whatever its nature, 
 the one broad patent fact remains alike in- 
 dubitable and incontestable : there was a de- 
 finite epoch in which the human mind first 
 came into being. Thought began to be. In- 
 telligence, self-conscious, emerged though not 
 from the world of matter to be enthroned in 
 the World of Mind. Whence came it ? Who 
 will tell us? For to Agnostic Evolution a 
 phenomenon so portentous is absolutely fatal. 
 Scientific Materialism can give no account of 
 it It is perfectly "UNACCOUNTABLE." 
 
 And yet it is true !
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 THE THREE BARRIERS. 
 
 +- 
 
 "So long as you have that fire of the heart 
 within you, and know the reality of it," says 
 Mr. Ruskin, "you need be under no alarm as 
 to the possibility of its chemical or mechanical 
 analysis. The philosophers are very humorous 
 in their ecstasy of hope about it ; but the real 
 interest of their discoveries in this direction is 
 very small to human-kind." 1 And the same 
 may be said of the discoveries themselves. 
 Their actual amount, not less than their real 
 interest, is " very small." So small indeed, that 
 " their ecstasy about it " though merely an 
 " ecstasy of hope " is a " very humorous " spec- 
 tacle. He who doubts this nas not read Mr. 
 Darwin. 
 
 " It requires a long succession of ages to 
 adapt an organism to some new and peculiar 
 form of life, as, for instance, to fly through the 
 
 1 " The Queen of the Air." London, 1869, p. 70.
 
 174 Scientific Sophisms. 
 
 air." 1 "We do not see the transitional grade 
 through which the wings of birds have passed ; 
 but what special difficulty is tliere in believing 
 that it might profit the modified descendants of 
 the penguin, first to become enabled to flap 
 along the surface of the sea, like the logger- 
 headed duck, and ultimately to rise from its 
 surface and glide through the air ? " * " The 
 tail of the giraffe looks like an artificially con- 
 structed fly-flapper ; and it seems at first in- 
 credible that this should have been adapted for 
 its present purpose by successive slight modifi- 
 cations, each better and better, for so trifling 
 an object as driving away flies ; yet we should 
 pause before being too positive even in this 
 case, for ... a well-developed tail having 
 been formed in an aquatic animal, it might sub- 
 sequently come to be worked in for all sorts of 
 purposes as a fly-flapper, an organ of prehen- 
 sion, or as aid in turning, as with the dog." 8 
 
 In this way, the tail of a horse may have 
 been derived from that of a shark, the tail of a 
 cow from the skate, and the giraffe owe his fly- 
 flapper to a remote progenitor, the sturgeon. 
 Or, if there be any who think that to affirm this 
 
 1 " Origin of Species," First Edition, p. 328. 
 
 * Ibid., p. 329. 
 
 Ibid., p. 215.
 
 The Three Barriers. 175 
 
 is to affirm too much, Mr. Darwin may still ask 
 (as above) " What special difficulty there is in 
 believing" it? Especially "since it certainly is 
 not true that new organs appear suddenly in 
 any class." 1 
 
 The counterpart of this strange story is still 
 more worthy of a place in the record of the 
 "Thousand and One Nights." For not only 
 have so many terrestrial creatures been derived 
 from an " aquatic origin " 2 by that marvellous 
 metaphor called Natural Selection, but, on the 
 other hand, there are not wanting some land- 
 animals that, renouncing their original nature, 
 have become aquatic. Surprising as it may be 
 to learn that a giraffe was once a fish, it is not 
 less surprising to be told that a whale was once 
 a bear, And yet, " In North America, the black 
 bear was seen by Hearne swimming for hours 
 with widely-open mouth, thus catching, like a 
 whale, insects in the water. / see no difficulty 
 in a race of bears being rendered by Natural 
 Selection more and more aquatic in their struc- 
 ture and habits, with larger and larger mouths, 
 till a creature was produced as monstrous as a 
 whale." 3 With this difference, however : that, 
 
 1 " Origin of Species," First Edition, p. 214. 
 
 2 Ibid., p. 215. 
 
 In the third and subsequent editions, the latter part
 
 176 Scientific Sophisms. 
 
 when the ursine whale began his career he had 
 his tail to make an operation exactly the 
 reverse of that in the previous story. The land 
 animals, having been fishes, derived their tails 
 from the waters ; but in this latter case a land 
 animal goes into the water to live like a fish and 
 procure a tail. Humorous? Not at all. Per- 
 fectly serious. Consider the authority of Mr. 
 Huxley, and remember that "the hypothesis 
 postulates the unlimited modifiability of matter." 
 Nor is it matter alone which, in the hands of 
 " Natural Selection " presents the marvellous 
 transformations due to unlimited modifiability. 
 "Under changed conditions of life," says Mr. 
 Darwin, " it is at least possible that slight modi- 
 fications of instinct might be profitable to a 
 species ; and if it can be shown that instincts 
 do vary ever so little, then I can see no difficulty 
 in Natural Selection preserving and continually 
 accumulating variations of instinct to any extent 
 that was profitable. It is thus, / believe, that all 
 the most complex and wonderful instincts have 
 originated." * 
 
 of this passage is omitted, for no apparent reason. No 
 hint is given that Mr. Darwin now sees any difficulty 
 where he saw none before, and the statement as now left 
 still contains the suggested transformation ; a suggestion 
 strengthened by the connection in which it is found. 
 1 " Origin of Species," p. 229.
 
 The Three Barriers. 177 
 
 This is too much for M. Flourens. " Surely," 
 says that accomplished naturalist, "we cannot 
 take this as meant to be serious. Natural Se- 
 lection choosing an instinct ! 
 
 ' ... La poe'sie a ses licences, mais 
 Celle-ci passe un peu les bornes que j'y mets.' n l 
 
 Mr. Darwin, however, is serious enough, and 
 maintains in all good faith, that peculiar in- 
 stincts are in all cases the result not of original 
 endowment, but of subsequent acquisition ; " by 
 the slow and gradual accumulation of numerous 
 slight, yet profitable variations." 2 Individual 
 life, as well as the life of the community, whether 
 in ants or bees, was once a totally different thing 
 from what we now behold ; then beavers did not 
 build, and neither the stork nor the swallow 
 knew their appointed seasons. 
 
 Il treating of the ants and the honey-bee, 
 Mr. Darwin attempts to account for that striking 
 peculiarity the groundwork of much of their 
 polity the existence of neuters. 
 
 " Thus, I believe" he says, " it has been with social 
 insects ; a slight modification of structure or instinct, 
 
 1 "Examen du Livre de M. Darwin sur L'Origine 
 des Especes." Par P. Flourens. (Paris, 1864.) P. 55. 
 Vide infrd: Appendix, Note C. 
 
 2 " Origin of Species," p. 230.
 
 178 Scientific Sophisms. 
 
 correlated with the sterile condition of certain members 
 of the community, has been advantageous to the com- 
 munity ; consequently the fertile males and females of 
 the same community flourished, and transmitted to their 
 fertile offspring a tendency to produce sterile members, 
 having the same modification. And I believe this process 
 has been repeated, until that prodigious amount of dif- 
 ference between the fertile and sterile females of the same 
 species has been produced, which we see in many social 
 insects." 1 
 
 But the very existence of "the community " 
 (in the case of the honey-bees, for example) 
 depends upon the specific arrangements of the 
 present polity and constitution. Alter these 
 arrangements, and the polity is at an end ; " the 
 community" exists no longer. If, therefore, at 
 any time, all the females were fertile, as this 
 explanation implies that they once were, then 
 " the community " did not exist ; and its opera- 
 tions, however " slight," in " modification of 
 structure, or instinct," at a time when it was 
 non-existent, are unimaginable, except in 
 Utopia. 
 
 If only they were imaginable, the " scientific 
 imagination " would not lack exercise. We 
 should in that case have to imagine that when 
 the tertile females were transforming not them- 
 selves but their posterity into sterile members 
 
 1 " Origin of Species," p. 260.
 
 The Three Barriers. 179 
 
 for the benefit of society, there was one remark- 
 able exception. One female there was who, by 
 a long preconcerted scheme, though by a most 
 occult and undiscoverable process, was all the 
 while prodigiously increasing her fertility in 
 order to become the sole Mother and Queen of 
 the whole hive! We should have to imagine 
 fertile animals agreeing to produce, and actually 
 producing, sterile offspring ! " The fertile males 
 and females flourished ; and transmitted to 
 their fertile offspring a tendency to produce 
 sterile members ! " Fertile parents transmit, 
 through fertile progeny, a tendency to produce 
 sterility incapable of further production ! " Hu- 
 morous " ? Not at all. The theory requires it, 
 and therefore, quite seriously, Mr. Darwin "be- 
 lieves it." 
 
 By one of his earliest and acutest critics it 
 was justly observed, that " If we except a pass- 
 ing cavil at the imperfect knowledge of optics 
 displayed in the mechanism of the eye, Mr. 
 Darwin can scarcely be said to have touched 
 the evidence for design deduced from the feli- 
 cities of fabric and deep-lying adjustments, so 
 profusely exemplified throughout the animal 
 Kingdom. He tells us indeed how the pigeon's 
 feather may be varied, but not how the pigeon 
 came to be feather-clad at all. He leaves us 
 
 N
 
 i So Scientific Sophisms. 
 
 quite in the dark also as to the mode in which 
 natural selection sets to work in the multiplying 
 of air-sacs, or in the boring of bones, to increase 
 the facilities for flotation and flight. But he 
 devotes a large portion of a chapter on Instinct, 
 otherwise extremely graceful and interesting, 
 to a hypothetical exposition of the processes 
 by which the common hive-bee, Apis mdlifica, 
 might have distanced her less skilful kindred 
 Melipona and Bombus ; and how the wonderful 
 phenomena of sexual suppression and vicarious 
 labour might have arisen among the social in- 
 stincts of the bee and ant tribes generally. "No 
 one, since Touchstone's time, has set such store 
 on the virtues, or so taxed the capacities, of an 
 If. A certain abstract theorem conceded, if 
 Bombus or Melipona could be brought to put 
 that theorem in practice, one huge stumbling- 
 block would be removed from Mr. Darwin's 
 speculative path. But this is the hitch. It is 
 as much out of the question for Bombus or 
 Melipona, not being a man, to see with Mr. 
 Darwin's eyes, as it would be for Mr. Darwin, 
 not being a bee, to work with Melipona's tools. 
 Slight deflexions of habit, artificially provoked, 
 in the more highly endowed insect, do not 
 furnish the smallest presumption of the genesis 
 of new endowments in its inferior sisterhood.
 
 The Three Barriers. 181 
 
 ' It may easily be supposed] in these researches, 
 is but a sorry substitute for, 'It has actually 
 been observed' The true tokens of consummate 
 geometrical' prescience can never be simulated 
 by tentative effort Had Mr. Darwin lived two 
 thousand years ago, his ceral experiments might 
 have furnished a target for the shafts of Aristo- 
 phanes; 1 but, indifferent alike to savant and 
 satirist, Melipona was then building her cells 
 no better, and Mellifica no worse. Those ex- 
 planations of the mystery of cell-making which 
 really explain nothing are, however, moderation 
 itself to the inimitable though unconscious 
 legerdemain which converts an unanswerable and 
 unblunted objection to our author's favourite 
 solvent, drawn from the phenomena of insect 
 sterility and caste, into the occasion of a pane- 
 gyric on its power. It is his business^ prove 
 that natural selection has done certain wonderful 
 things : See, he virtually says, what wonderful 
 things, far beyond my own expectation, natural 
 selection can do? A more flagrant intrusion 
 of unpruned fancy into a domain sacred to the 
 severities of observation can scarcely be con- 
 ceived. 
 
 "The social insects, like those lower in the 
 
 i " Clouds," 147-153. 
 
 " Origin of Species," p. 242.
 
 1 82 Scientific Sophisms. 
 
 scale, must have started, on Mr. Darwin's view, 
 as ordinary male and female, with a common 
 share of individual labour ; on a par, in this 
 respect, with a flock of geese, or a herd of cattle, 
 or a community of mankind. Now let any 
 breeder of cattle consider through what agencies 
 a variety could be attained of which only one 
 birth in five should be a bull or a cow, the other 
 four being natural neuters, devoted subjects of 
 their perfect sister, but sworn foes of her spouse. 
 It is an aptitude precisely analogous to this 
 that has produced, we are asked to believe, the 
 economy of the bee-hive. Or let any trans- 
 atlantic admirer of the 'domestic institution* 
 of Formica rufescens, turn over in his mind the 
 means by which every third man-child born on 
 his estate should be ten times the size of the 
 rest of 'the family; 1 or each alternate female 
 be fitted for a nurse while forbidden to be a 
 
 1 Mr. Darwin, in noting the fact that " the neuters of 
 several ants differ, not only from the fertile females and 
 males, but from each other, sometimes to an almost in- 
 credible degree," says, " The difference between them is 
 the same as if we were to see a set of workmen building 
 a house, of whom many were five feet high, and many 
 sixteen feet high but we must further suppose that the 
 larger workmen had heads four times as big as those of 
 the smaller men, and jaws nearly five times as big." 
 " Origin of Species," pp. 260, 261
 
 The Three Barriers. 183 
 
 mother ; and he would have the measure of the 
 intrinsic likelihood of the Darwinian doctrine, 
 in its bearing on that insect and its confede- 
 rates. It were idle to enlarge. There are 
 worthier lessons to be gleaned from the world 
 of instinct than such as affront all legitimate 
 analogy, and gratuitously dissociate the marvels 
 of nature from their only true solvent, the 
 ordination of God." 
 
 Turning now from the disordered dreams of 
 unpruned fancy to the severities of observation ; 
 from ingenious suppositions of what might have 
 been, to the actual certainties that are ; we find 
 all Comparative Anatomy tending towards the 
 recognition and extrication of three supreme 
 values, in the grouping of animals, and the 
 graduation of life, past as welFas present: 
 the BACKBONE, the BREAST, and the BK IN. 
 And the key to the significance of animal life 
 and its prerogatives, thus grouped and graduated, 
 is not, and cannot be, Selective Development, 
 but is, and must be, Elective Design. 
 
 " The first leet, in the ascending order, takes 
 note of all animals, as Vertebrates or Sub- 
 vertebrates : for every individual organism en- 
 dowed with a backbone, there are countless 
 millions without it Hence this first or exterior
 
 184 Scientific Sophisms. 
 
 leet leaves a master-group, palpably supreme 
 in framework and ground-plan over three other 
 groups the Articulate, the Convolute, and the 
 Radiate between which and the master-group 
 the BARRIER OF BACKBONE stands impassable ; 
 at least till it is explained how a butterfly could 
 become a bird, or a snail a serpent, or a star- 
 fish acquire the skeleton of the salmon or the 
 shark. It is like the going forth of a Divine 
 decree : ' One shall be taken, and three shall be 
 left.' 
 
 "The second leet, Sub-vertebrates out of 
 view, takes account of Vertebrates themselves 
 as Mammals or Sub-mammals. Among the 
 elect it makes an inner election. Besides the 
 Backbone it exacts the Breast ; shedding off, 
 as before, three well-marked groups subordinate 
 to the master-group of Mammals or Sucklers. 
 These breastless tribes are Birds, Reptiles, and 
 Fishes ; holding high, low, and medium rank 
 among themselves, not so much on the principle 
 of skeleton, or its specialized offshoots, as on 
 that of characters which are correlated to the 
 development of care for their young. . . . 
 Still the Mammal, by its endowment of the 
 fostering bosom, stands elect, aloft, and apart 
 Bird, Reptile, Fish, far beneath in the scale ;
 
 The Three Barriers. 185 
 
 and till it is shown how an animal that never 
 got suck stumbled on the capacity of giving 
 what was never given it, the BREAST will 
 stand, against all dreams of development, COM- 
 PANION-BARRIER to the Backbone. Again is 
 heard the elective edict: 'One shall be taken, 
 and three shall be left.' 
 
 "Third, last, innermost leet: note has to be 
 taken among the Mammalia themselves, from 
 the Marsupials to Man, of the presence or 
 absence of one testing character, and that the 
 chief the Perfect Brain. This is found in one 
 creature, occupying, as it were, the inner ring 
 and core of the concentric circles of vitality, and 
 in one alone. In the lowest variety of man it 
 is present present in the Negro or the Bush- 
 man as in the civilized European ;~and absent 
 in all below man absent in the ape or the 
 elephant as truly as in the kangaroo or the 
 duckmole. To all men the pleno-cerebral type 
 is common : to man, as such, it is peculiar. And 
 till we hear of some Simian tribe which 
 speculates on- its own origin, or discusses its 
 own place in the scale of being, we shall be 
 safe in opposing the HUMAN BRAIN, with 
 its sign in language, culture, capacity of pro- 
 gress, as BARRIER THE THIRD to Mr. Darwin's
 
 1 86 Scientific Sophisms. -, 
 
 scheme." 1 "And thus, as in the former leets, 
 are the triple tribe of under-brains walled off 
 from the Brain of Man. 3 A third time there 
 falls a voice from the Excellent Glory : ' One 
 shall be taken, and three shall be left.' " 
 
 Below the fish, how powerless comparatively, 
 all creatures are ! The primates of sub-verte- 
 brate nature are the ant and the bee. Most 
 mollusks are anchored to one spot for life, and 
 the bulkiest of crustaceans, shorn of other 
 locomotion, could only crawl in shallow waters 
 among his rocks and sands. The advent of 
 the backbone is the advent of animal power : 
 the type of an all-pervading and resistless 
 energy. The wing of the eagle, the jaw of 
 
 1 " The Three Barriers : Notes on Mr. Darwin's ' Origin 
 of Species.'" Blackwood & Sons. Pp. 88, et seqq. To 
 the highly-gifted author of this brilliant little book a 
 book as admirable in method as unanswerable in effect 
 I gratefully record my obligations. 
 
 2 " By a purely inductive process, the sub-human mam- 
 malia have been carefully distributed into the wave- 
 brained, the smooth-brained, and the loose-brained, re- 
 presented respectively by the ape, the beaver, and the 
 kangaroo ; with a result, so far as the two departments 
 of science are comparable, like that of the application of 
 Kepler's laws to the planetary motions : the subjects of 
 the classification fall, for the first time, into their true 
 places a mob of animals becomes a regular army."
 
 The Three Barriers. ' 187 
 
 the crocodile, the spring of the tiger, the teeth 
 of the shark, the terrible coil of the boa-con- 
 strictor ; the backbone is the basis of them 
 all. 
 
 Below the mammal, again, how loveless, by 
 comparison, is the world of life ! There are 
 no sub-mammalian mothers ; animals below 
 that line are parents or producers only. The 
 crossing of that line is a great work of Deity. 
 God creates a new thing in the earth when He 
 hangs the nursling on the mother's breast, and 
 bids the two be as one. Together with the 
 prerogative of the nurturing bosom there start 
 up everywhere, on land and sea, the most 
 touching examples of brute devotion and of 
 passionate maternity. 
 
 Deep calleth unto deep, and the cry is still 
 Excelsior ! Nature is a hierarchy of which the 
 head is man. Mind, language, worship, civili- 
 zation ; the will to determine, the tongue to 
 speak, the hand to do ; these in their bound- 
 less purport are all lacking until the Creator 
 plants upon the scene the solitary owner of the 
 Perfect Brain. Named in one word, all these 
 are wisdom ; and Man, " thinker of God's 
 thoughts after Him," is, among uncounted 
 myriads of lower existentes, on this earth, 
 Only Wise. Of this superiority, the human
 
 1 88 Scientific Sophisms. 
 
 brain is the badge. The attempts that have 
 been made to minimize, and even to efface its 
 significance, will be noticed in the sequel ; 
 but the force and effect of that significance are 
 not to be invalidated and cannot be impaired 
 by disputations in detail. The one broad cha- 
 racteristic fact remains beyond dispute : all 
 healthy human brains are structurally perfect ; 
 but the highest brute brains are structurally 
 imperfect. The human brain is pleno-cerebral ; 
 all other brains are manco-cerebral. The 
 human brain, in its least cultivated manifes- 
 tations, retains the latent franchise of progres- 
 sive reason ; all other brains exhibit the rigid 
 circumscription of unprogressive instinct. No 
 brute is susceptible of human culture ; while, 
 on the other hand, of that culture there is no 
 human infant that is not susceptible. Between 
 these two, the difference thus seen is nothing 
 less than a difference absolutely immeasurable.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 ATOMS. 
 
 BUT these magnificent achievements the 
 Vertebral Column, the Fostering Bosom, the 
 Perfect Brain with their inexplicable origin, 
 their profound significance, their limitless re- 
 sults, have been accomplished by the cosmical 
 atoms alone. Outside those atoms, or beyond 
 them, there is not now, nor has there been at 
 any time, any existence whatever. No sub- 
 stance, no essence, no entity, no force, no 
 motion. " Matter is the origin of all that 
 exists ; all natural and mental forces are in- 
 herent in it." 1 "The existing world lay po- 
 tentially in the cosmic vapour." 8 For "the 
 fundamental proposition ot evolution " is, as we 
 have seen, "that the whole world, living and 
 not living, is the result of the mutual inter- 
 action, according to definite laws, of the forces 
 possessed by the molecules of which the 
 primitive nebulosity of the universe was com- 
 
 1 Buchner, ut sup., p. 96. 
 
 1 Prof. Huxley, ut 3up.> p. 64.
 
 190 Scientific Sophisms. 
 
 posed." 1 In a word and that, the word of 
 Lucretius, adopted and adorned in the Belfast 
 Address " The Atoms are the first beginnings." 
 What then are these ultimate inorganic atoms 
 on which (according to the hypothesis of Devel- 
 opment) everything depends ? The idea ex- 
 pressed by the word itself is simply the idea 
 of " matter " in minimis, arising only from an 
 arrest by a supposed physical limit, of a geo- 
 metrical divisibility possible without end. But 
 " things which cannot be cut " might be all 
 alike ; or they might be variously different, 
 inter se ; and, on setting out in this inquiry it 
 is necessary to know on which of these two 
 assumptions we are to proceed. If the ma- 
 terialist is to be credited with any logical ex- 
 actness, it is the former assumption alone that 
 is admissible. When he asks for no more than 
 matter for his purpose of constructing a uni- 
 verse, his demand is restricted to tlie essentials 
 /o matter, the characters which enter into its 
 definition. It is from these alone that he 
 pledges himself to deduce all the accessory 
 characters which appear in one place though 
 not in another, and which discriminate the 
 several provinces of nature. It is in perfect 
 
 1 Prof. Huxley, ut suprb, p. 64. Vide infrd, Appendix, 
 Note J.
 
 Atoms. 191 
 
 accordance with this, that the " atomists," says 
 Lange, " attributed to matter only the simplest 
 of the various properties of things those, 
 namely, which are indispensable for the pre- 
 sentation of a something in space and time, and 
 their aim was to evolve from these alone the 
 whole assemblage of phenomena." " They it 
 was," he adds, " who gave the first perfectly 
 clear notion of what we are to understand by 
 matter as the basis of all phenomena. With 
 the positing of this notion, materialism stood 
 complete, as the first perfectly clear and con- 
 sequent theory of all phenomena." 1 
 
 If further corroboration of this statement 
 were needed, it might be adduced from Mr. 
 Herbert Spencer's definition of Evolution, 
 already quoted : J " Evolution is a change from 
 an indefinite incoherent homogeneity, to a de- 
 finite coherent heterogeneity, through continuous 
 differentiations and integrations." And again : 
 " From the earliest traceable cosmical changes 
 down to the latest results of civilization we sliall 
 find that the transformation of the homogeneous 
 into the heterogeneous is that in which evolu- 
 tion essentially consists." In perfect consis- 
 tency with these statements Mr. Spencer further 
 
 1 " Geschichte des Materialismus," i. pp. 8, 9. 
 * Vide suprci, p. 27.
 
 192 Scientific Sophisms. 
 
 contends that the properties of the different 
 elements (i.e., the chemical elements, hydrogen, 
 carbon, etc.) " result from differences of arrange- 
 ment, arising from the compounding and re- 
 compounding of ultimate homogeneous units" ' 
 So that, to sum up all in one word, there is 
 but, as he further tells us, "one ultimate form 
 of matter, out of which the successively more 
 complex forms of matter are built up." 9 
 
 These statements are not lacking, either in 
 clearness or consistency. Their only fault is 
 that they are not correct. The " one ultimate 
 form of matter" is not forthcoming. The 
 " homogeneous extended solids " are not homo- 
 geneous. We are not to be surprised if we 
 should see sixty-two out of the sixty-three 
 " elements " fall to pieces analytically before 
 our eyes. If we would speak positively of the 
 simplicity of phosphorus or carbon, we are 
 warned that " there are no recognised ele- 
 mentary substances, if the expression means 
 substances known to be elementary. What 
 chemists for convenience call elementary sub- 
 stances, are merely substances which they have 
 thus far failed to decompose." 
 
 But let the contrary supposition be admitted. 
 
 1 Contemp. Rev., June, 1872. 
 
 * " Principles of Psychology," vol. i. p. 155.
 
 Atoms. 193 
 
 Let it be supposed that the alleged homogeneity 
 were as real as now it is imaginary. Let the 
 appeal be allowed which all logical atomists 
 make to the case of isomeric bodies, and espe- 
 cially to that of allotropic varieties. Let such 
 varieties of appearance as those presented by 
 carbon 1 and phosphorus 2 be attributed, not to 
 any qualitative cause, but to a different group- 
 ing of the atoms ; the morphological differences, 
 if adequately obtained, will still contribute no 
 explanation of the observed variations of at- 
 tribute. Vary in imagination, as you please, 
 the adjustments of their homologous sides, so 
 as to build molecules of several types, the 
 question will still remain unanswered, " What 
 is there in the arrangement a b c to occasion 
 ' activity ' in phosphorus, while the arrangement 
 b a c produces ' inertness ? ' " Where the pro- 
 ducts differ only in geometrical properties, and 
 consequently in optical, the explanation may 
 be admissible, the form and the laying of the 
 bricks determining the outline and the density 
 of the structure. But by no device can the 
 deduction be extended from the physical to the 
 
 1 Charcoal, black-lead, and diamond. 
 
 2 In the yellow, semi-transparent, inflammable form ; 
 and again as an opaque, dark red substance, combustible 
 only at a much higher temperature. 
 
 O
 
 194 Scientific Sophisms, 
 
 chemical properties : to these last heterogeneity 
 is essential. To deduce chemical phenomena 
 from mechanical conditions, if it be not an 
 impossible conception, may possibly be a " fig- 
 ment of the intellect," but it is a figment with- 
 out any pretence to " verification." 
 
 " Even in the last resort, if we succeed in getting all 
 our atoms alike, we do not rid ourselves of an unex- 
 plained heterogeneity ; it is simply transferred from their 
 nature as units to their rules of combination. Whether 
 the qualitative difference between hydrogen and each of 
 the other elements is conditional upon a distinction of 
 kind in the atoms, or on definite varieties in their mode 
 of numerical or geometrical union, these conditions are 
 not provided for by the mere existence of homogeneous 
 atoms ; and nothing that you can do with these atoms, 
 within the limits of their definition, will get the required 
 heterogeneity out of them. Make them up into molecules 
 by what grouping or architecture you will ; still the 
 difference between hydrogen and iron is not that be- 
 tween one and three, or any other number ; or between 
 shaped solids built off in one direction and similar ones 
 built off in another, which may turn out like a right and a 
 left glove. If hydrogen were the sole ' primordial/ and 
 were transmutable, by select shuffling of its atoms, into 
 every one of its present sixty-two associates, both the 
 tendency to these special combinations, and the effects 
 of chem would be as little deducible from the homogene- 
 ous datum as, on the received view, are the chemical 
 phenomena from mechanical conditions. I still think, 
 therefore, that M you assume atoms at all, you may as 
 well take the \\hole sixty-three sorts in a lot. And this 
 startling multiplication of the original monistic assumn-
 
 Atoms. 195 
 
 tion, I understand Professor Tyndall to admit as indis- 
 pensable." 
 
 This witness is true. The " original monistic 
 assumption " is now discarded by Professor Tyn- 
 dall 2 and Professor Bain as emphatically as by 
 Mr. Martineau himself. The " ultimate homo- 
 geneous units " of Mr. Spencer are now found to 
 be utterly inadequate to the task required of 
 them. They must be in motion ; they must be of 
 various shapes ; they must be of as many kinds 
 as there are chemical elements ; for how could 
 we possibly get water if there were only hydro- 
 gen elements to work with ? And when, by 
 means of this very considerable enlargement of 
 the original datum we have got water, what is 
 that further enlargement by which we should be 
 able so to manipulate our ever-increasing re- 
 sources as to educe, for example, consciousness ? 
 Let some Power so ordain, and some Wisdom 
 so contrive, that all the atoms are affected by 
 gravitation and polarity ; let there be, as 
 Fechner insists that there is, a difference 
 among molecules ; let there be the inorganic, 
 which can change only their place, like the 
 
 1 The Rev. James Martineau : Modem Materialism 
 (Contemp. Rev., vol. xxvii. p. 338). 
 
 2 For Prof. Bain's dicta, see " Mind and Body " : pp. 
 124-135.
 
 196 Scientific Sophisms. 
 
 particles in an undulation ; and the organic, 
 which can change their order, as in a globule that 
 turns itself inside out. What then? When you 
 have to pass from mere sentiency to thought 
 and will, your Theory of Development is as 
 impotent as ever until you have obtained what 
 only a further hypothesis can give a handful 
 of Leibnitz's monads to serve as souls in little. 
 
 " But surely you must observe that this 
 'matter' of yours alters its style with every 
 change of service ; starting as a beggar, with 
 scarce a rag of ' property ' to cover its bones, 
 it turns up as a prince when large undertakings 
 are wanted . . . It is easy travelling through 
 the stages of such a hypothesis ; you deposit 
 at your bank a round sum ere you start, and 
 drawing on it piecemeal at every pause, com- 
 plete your grand tour without a debt." 1 
 
 If now, from fictitious fancies such as these, 
 we turn to the actual facts, we shall find that 
 the whole argument sums itself up in a single 
 remark of Sir William Thomson : " The as- 
 sumption of atoms can explain no property of 
 body which has not previously been attributed 
 to the atoms themselves." 
 
 1 Martineau : " Religion as Affected by Modern Ma- 
 terialism."
 
 Atoms. 197 
 
 r 
 
 The "atom" of the modern mathematical 
 physics has, accordingly, given up its preten- 
 sion to stand as an absolute beginning, and 
 now serves only as a necessary rest for ex- 
 hausted analysis, before setting forth on the 
 return journey of deduction. " A simple ele- 
 mentary atom," says Professor Balfour Stewart, 
 " is probably in a state of ceaseless activity and 
 change of form, but it is, nevertheless, always 
 the same." 1 "The molecule," (here identical 
 with "atom," as the author is speaking of a 
 simple substance, as hydrogen), " though indes- 
 tructible, is not a hard rigid body," says Pro- 
 fessor Clerk Maxwell, "but is capable of 
 internal movements, and when these are ex- 
 cited it emits rays, the wave-length of which 
 is a measure of the time of vibration of the 
 molecule." 3 But "change of form" and "in- 
 ternal movements " are impossible without 
 shifting parts, and altered relations ; and where 
 then is the final simplicity of the atom ? It 
 is no longer a pure unit, but a numerical whole. 
 And as part can separate from part, not only 
 in thought but in the phenomena, how is it an 
 " atom " at all ? " What is there, beyond an 
 arbitrary dictum, to prevent a part which 
 
 1 " The Conservation of Energy," p. 7. 
 * "A Discourse on Molecules," p. 12.
 
 198 Scientific Sophisms. w 
 
 changes its relation to its fellows from chang- 
 ing its relation to the whole removing to the 
 outside ? Such a body, though serving as an 
 element in chemistry, is mechanically com- 
 pound, and has a constitution of its own, 
 which raises as many questions as it answers, 
 and wholly unfits it for offering to the human 
 mind a point of ultimate rest. It has accord- 
 ingly been strictly kept to a penultimate 
 position in the conception of philosophical 
 physicists like Gassendi, Herschel, and Clerk 
 Maxwell, and of masters in the logic of science, 
 like Lotze and Stanley Jevons." 
 
 Nor is it to be overlooked that the sixty-three 
 kinds of atoms are not at liberty to be neutral 
 to one another, or to run an indeterminate round 
 of experiments in association, within the limits 
 of possible permutation. " Each is already 
 provided with its select list of admissible com- 
 panions ; and the terms of its partnership with 
 every one of these are strictly prescribed ; so 
 that not one can modify, by the most trivial 
 fraction, the capital it has to bring. Vainly, 
 for instance, does the hydrogen atom, with its 
 low figure and light weight make overtures to 
 the more considerable oxygen element ; the 
 only reply will be, either none of you or two 
 of you. And so on throughout the list." It is
 
 Atoms. 199 
 
 in view of this property of admitting certain 
 definite possibilities, while yet they are so 
 limited as to fence off and exclude all competing 
 possibilities, that Sir John Herschel felt himself 
 compelled to describe the atoms as possessing 
 " all the characteristics of manufactured articles" 
 
 This verdict amuses Dr. Tyndall ; nothing 
 more. "He twice 1 dismisses it with a super- 
 cilious laugh ; for which perhaps, as for the 
 atoms it concerns, there may be some suppressed 
 * ratio sufficiens! But the problem thus plea- 
 santly touched is not one of those which solventur 
 risu ; and, till some better grounded answer can 
 be given to it, that on which the large and 
 balanced thought of Herschel and the masterly 
 penetration of Clerk Maxwell have alike settled 
 with content, may claim at least a provisional 
 respect." 2 
 
 To conclude. The conception of an infinitude 
 of discrete atoms, when pushed to its hypo- 
 thetical extreme, brings them no nearer to unity 
 than homogeneity, an attribute which itself 
 implies that they are separate and comparable 
 members of a genus. And what is the result of 
 comparing them ? 
 
 1 Belfast Address, p. 26 ; and Fortnightly Review, 
 Nov., 1875, p. 598. 
 
 2 Martineau : Contemporary Review, vol. xxvii. p. 345.
 
 2oo Scientific Sophisms. 
 
 They " are conformed," we are assured, " to 
 a constant type with a precision which is not 
 to be found in the sensible properties of the 
 bodies which they constitute. In the first place, 
 the mass of each individual," " and all its other 
 properties, are absolutely unalterable. In the 
 second place, the properties of all " " of the 
 same kind are absolutely identical." l Here 
 then, to adopt the weighty words of Mr. Mar- 
 tineau, " we have an infinite assemblage of 
 phenomena of Resemblance. But further, these 
 atoms, besides the internal vibration of each, are 
 agitated by movements carrying them in all 
 directions, now along free paths, and now into 
 collisions. 3 Here therefore, we have phenomena 
 of Difference in endless variety. And so it 
 comes to this : that our unitary datum breaks 
 up into a genus of innumerable contents, and 
 its individuals are affected both with ideally 
 perfect correspondences and with numerous con- 
 trasts of movement. What intellect can pause 
 and compose itself to rest in this vast and 
 restless crowd of assumptions ? Who can restrain 
 the ulterior question, WHENCE then these 
 myriad types of the same letter imprinted on 
 
 1 Prof. Maxwell's " Discourse on Molecules," p. II. 
 * " Theory of Heat." By J. Clerk Maxwell, M.A., 
 LL.D., F.R.SS. London and Edinburgh. Pp. 310, 311.
 
 Atoms. 20 1 
 
 the earth, the sun, the stars, as if the very mould 
 used here had been lent to Sirius, and passed 
 on through the constellations ? " 
 
 For answer to this " ulterior question," we 
 shall find none more conclusive, none more 
 authoritative, than that of Professor Maxwell : 
 
 " No theory of evolution can be formed to 
 account for the similarity of the molecules 
 throughout all time, and throughout the whole 
 region of the stellar universe, for evolution 
 necessarily implies continuous change, and the 
 molecule is incapable of growth or decay, of 
 generation or destruction." 
 
 Again he says : " None of the processes of 
 Nature, since the time when Nature began, have 
 produced the slightest difference in the proper- 
 ties of any molecule. On the other hand, the 
 exact equality of each molecule to all others of 
 the same kind precludes the idea of its being 
 eternal and self-existent. We have reached 
 the utmost limit of our thinking faculties when 
 we have admitted that because matter cannot 
 be eternal and self "existent it must have been 
 created." 
 
 "These molecules," he adds, "continue this 
 day as they were created, perfect in number, 
 and measure, and weight ; and from the inef- 
 faceable characters impressed on them we may
 
 202 Scientific Sophisms. 
 
 learn that those aspirations after truth in state- 
 ment, and justice in action, which we reckon 
 among our noblest attributes as men, are ours 
 because they are the essential constituents of 
 the image of Him, who in the beginning created 
 not only the heaven and the earth, but the 
 materials of which heaven and earth consist." l 
 
 A fit pendant to this noble utterance is fur- 
 nished in the words of Professor Pritchard, who, 
 quoting this passage, adds, 
 
 "And this is the true outcome of the deepest, 
 the most exact, and tJu most recent science of our 
 age. A grander utterance has not come from 
 the mind of a philosopher since the days when 
 Newton concluded his Principia by his immor- 
 tal scholium on the majestic Personality of the 
 Creator and Lord of the Universe." 3 
 
 1 " Discourse on Molecules." 
 
 1 Address at the Brighton Congress, October, 1874.
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 APES. 
 
 " IF," says Prof. Tyndall, addressing his Bir- 
 mingham audience, " If to any one of us 
 were given the privilege of looking back 
 through the aeons across which life has 
 crept towards its present outcome, his vision 
 would ultimately reach a point when the pro- 
 genitors of this assembly could not be called 
 human. From that humble society, through 
 the interaction of its members and the storing 
 up of their best qualities, a ,better one em- 
 erged ; from this again a better still ; until 
 at length, by the integration of infinitesimals 
 through ages of amelioration, we came to be 
 what we are to-day." l 
 
 If ' we ask for some warrant of evidence 
 in support of this series of assertions founded 
 on assumption, Mr. Darwin replies that "On 
 the principle of Natural Selection with di- 
 
 1 " Science and Man : " Fortnightly Review, 1877, p. 
 116.
 
 204 Scientific Sophisms. 
 
 vergence of character, it does not seem 
 incredible, that from some such low and in- 
 termediate form as the lower algae, both 
 animals and plants may have been developed ; 
 and if we admit this, we must admit that 
 all organic beings which have ever lived on 
 this earth may have descended from some 
 one primordial form." 1 
 
 In other words, and to speak more pre- 
 cisely, " Born of Electricity and Albumen, the 
 simple monad is the first living atom ; the 
 microscopic animalcules, the snail, the worm, 
 the reptile, the fish, the bird, and the quad- 
 ruped, all spring from its invisible loins. 
 The human similitude at last appears in the 
 character of the monkey ; the monkey rises 
 into the baboon ; the baboon is exalted to the 
 ourang outang ; and the chimpanzee, with a 
 more human toe and shorter arms, gives birth 
 to Man." 3 . 
 
 What Sir David Brewster has here done 
 for the Fauna on this principle of Develop- 
 ment, Hugh Miller has in like manner done 
 for the Flora, when he tells us that according 
 to this theory "dulse and hen-ware became, 
 through a very wonderful metamorphosis, 
 
 1 " Origin of Species :" p. 519. 
 
 1 " North British Review," 1845, p. 483.
 
 Apes. 205 
 
 cabbage and spinach ; that kelp-weed and 
 tangle burgeoned into oaks and willows ; 
 and that slack, rope-weed, and green-raw, 
 shot up into mangel-wurzel, rye-grass and 
 clover." i 
 
 And all this in Mr. Darwin's opinion 
 " does not seem incredible." There must have 
 been we have his word for it "a series of 
 forms graduating insensibly from some ape- 
 like creature to man as he now exists." 2 
 
 How to derive the " ape-like creature " 
 himself? By a similar process: "a series 
 of forms graduating insensibly " from a tad- 
 pole to a monkey. The Ape is the imme- 
 diate, but the Ascidian is the remote pro- 
 genitor of the genus Homo. And these 
 Ascidians, which " resemble tadpoles in shape, 
 and swim by means of a vibratile tail, which 
 they shake off when they quit the larva 
 state and assume the sessile condition," " have 
 been recently placed, by some naturalists, 
 among the Vermes or worms." 
 
 As to the ape-like creature, 
 
 " Man is descended from a hairy quadruped, 
 furnished with a tail and pointed ears, prob- 
 ably arboreal in its habits, and an inhabitant 
 
 1 " Footprints of the Creator," p. 226. 
 " Descent of Man : " vol. i. p. 235.
 
 206 Scientific Sophisms. 
 
 of the old world." l And again : " The early 
 progenitors of man were no doubt well covered 
 with hair, both sexes having beards ; their 
 ears were pointed and capable of movement ; 
 and their bodies were provided with a tail, 
 having the proper muscles. . . . The 
 males were provided with great canine teeth, 
 which served them as formidable weapons." 2 
 
 Then as to the Ape's descent from his 
 Ascidian ancestor : 
 
 " The most ancient progenitors in the 
 Kingdom of the Vertebrata at which we are 
 able to obtain an obscure glance, apparently 
 consisted of a group of marine animals, re- 
 sembling the larvae of existing Ascidians. 
 These animals probably gave rise to a group 
 of fishes, as lowly organized as the Lancelet ; 
 and from these the Ganoids and other fishes 
 like the Lepidosiren, must have been devel- 
 oped. From such fish a very small advance 
 would carry us on to the amphibians. . . . 
 Birds and reptiles were once intimately con- 
 nected together, and the Monotremata now, 
 in a slight degree, connect mammals with 
 reptiles. But no one can at present, say by 
 what line of descent the three higher and 
 
 1 " Descent of Man," vol. ii. p. 389. 
 * Ibid., vol. i. pp. 206, 207.
 
 Apes. 207 
 
 related classes, namely, mammals, birds, and 
 reptiles, were derived from either of the two 
 lower vertebrate classes, namely amphibians 
 and fishes. In the class of mammals the steps 
 are not difficult to conceive which led from the 
 ancient Monotremata to the ancient Marsu- 
 pials ; and from these to the early progenitors 
 of the placental animals. We may thus ascend 
 to the Lemuridae ; and the interval is not 
 wide from these to the Simiadae. The Simi- 
 adae then branched off into two great stems, 
 the New World and the Old World monkeys ; 
 and from the latter, at a remote period, man, 
 the wonder and glory of the universe, pro- 
 ceeded. . . . If a single link in this chain 
 had never existed, man would not have been 
 what he now is. Unless we wilfully close 
 our eyes, we may, with our present know- 
 ledge, approximately recognize our parentage, 
 nor need we feel ashamed of it" 1 
 
 " If a single link in this chain had never 
 existed " ! Why, even as Mr. Darwin has 
 imagined it, it is not a chain at all. There 
 is no continuity of concatenation. Even its 
 very first link has to be imagined. And 
 even when it has been imagined it is found 
 to consist not really, not demonstrably, but 
 1 " Descent of Man," voL i. pp. 212, 213. 
 
 P
 
 208 Scientific Sophisms. 
 
 only " apparently " " of a group of marine 
 animals." Of this group we have no other 
 view than a mere " glance," " an obscure 
 glance." But this first link, even when on the 
 strength of an obscure glance it has been 
 pronounced "apparent," is still not even 
 " apparently " connected with any other. The 
 connection required by the hypothesis very 
 far indeed from being " apparent " is " prob- 
 able " only. " These animals probably gave 
 rise to a group of fishes," " and from these 
 the Ganoids and other fishes must have been 
 developed." But why " must have been ? " 
 there is no sort of necessity except that which 
 is due to the exigencies of the theory. " From 
 such fish a very small advance would carry 
 us on to the amphibians." Possibly : but this 
 very small advance is not to be had. Mr. 
 Darwin's argument is made by himself to 
 depend on the strength of his " chain " ; and 
 the strength of his chain is precisely that of 
 its weakest link. But before all questions of 
 strength there must be the prior fact of ex- 
 istence. Chains are made not by an aggrega- 
 tion of detached links, but by their continuity 
 of concatenation. "A very small advance," 
 possibly : but to advance at all without the 
 aid of the missing link, is to abandon the
 
 Apes. 209 
 
 pretence of a chain. Yet this is precisely 
 Mr. Darwin's chosen mode of progression. 
 
 " In the class of mammals," he tells us, " the 
 steps are not difficult to conceive which led 
 from the ancient Monotremata to the ancient 
 Marsupials ; and from these to the early progeni- 
 tors of' the placental animals." In this theory 
 of Ascensive Development " the steps " are every 
 thing. But where are they ? Their discovery is 
 hopeless, their demonstration is impossible ; no 
 matter : they " are not difficult to conceive " ! 
 
 "We may thus ascend to the Lemuridae." 
 " Thus " : by steps which cannot be found ; 
 steps on which no one ever stood ; but still, 
 steps which Mr. Darwin finds it "not difficult 
 to conceive." And then: "from these to the 
 Simiadae" "the interval is not wide." So be 
 it : but however it be, it is nothing to the 
 purpose. That which is to the purpose is not 
 the width, but the fact of " the interval." And 
 this fact of " the interval " is attested by Mr. 
 Darwin himself. And with this " interval " be- 
 fore him, and these aerial " steps," and these 
 appearances which are " apparent " only to 
 " an obscure glance," Mr. Darwin can so far 
 overlook the obvious and actual, in his zeal 
 for the ideal and imaginary, as to say " If 
 a single link in this chain had never existed 1 "
 
 2io Scientific Sophisms. 
 
 , i Even this is not the worst For, he adds 
 " Unless we wilfully close our eyes, we may, 
 with our present knowledge, approximately 
 recognize our parentage." " Our present know- 
 ledge " ! Why, that is merely our present want 
 of knowledge ; for it is he himself who tells 
 us that " no one can at present say by what 
 line of descent the mammals," i.e., ourselves 
 "were derived." 
 
 In the hands of Prof. Huxley, the specious 
 plausibilities of Mr. Darwin commonly assume 
 the form of dogmatic affirmations ; but in re- 
 lation to this matter of the Descent of Man 
 from the Ape, the cautious and conditional 
 generalisations of Mr. Huxley furnish fresh 
 proof, if fresh proof be needed, of the thoroughly 
 conjectural character of Mr. Darwin's theory. 
 
 " If," says the learned Professor, " IF Man 
 be separated by no greater structural barrier 
 from the brutes than they are from one an- 
 other THEN it SEEMS to follow that IF any 
 process of physical causation can be discovered 
 by which the genera and families of ordinary 
 animals have been produced, that process of 
 causation is amply sufficient to account for 
 the origin of Man. In other words, IF it 
 could be shown that the Marmosets, for ex- 
 ample, have arisen by gradual modification of
 
 Apes. 2 1 1 
 
 the ordinary Platyrhini, or that both Marmosets 
 and Platyrhini are modified ramifications of a 
 primitive stock THEN, there would be no 
 rational ground for doubting that man MIGHT 
 have originated, in the one case, by the gra- 
 dual modification of a man-like ape ; or, in 
 the other case, as a ramification of the same 
 primitive stock as those apes." l 
 
 Widely different from Mr. Darwin's " chain," 
 with every " single link " in its place, this re- 
 iterated relation of "If" and "then" ; with its 
 conditional sequence of what, after all, only 
 "seems to follow"; and its ultimate conclusion 
 that " Man might have originated," either in a 
 given mode, or in some other mode not given. 
 
 Mr. Huxley adds, " I adopt Mr. Darwin's 
 hypothesis therefore, subject to the production 
 of proof that physiological species MAY be pro- 
 duced by selective breeding." z But this desid- 
 erated "proof" is precisely that very thing con- 
 cerning which both Mr. Huxley and Mr. Darwin 
 are agreed that it is not producible. Flourens, 
 and Cuvier, Buffon, and De Candolle, Mviller, 
 and John Hunter, Lyell, and Lawrence, Agas- 
 siz, and Pouchet, though they know nothing of 
 
 1 Huxley's u Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature." 
 Williams & Norgate : 1863. Pp. 105, 106. 
 1 Ibid., p. 1 08.
 
 212 Scientific Sophisms. 
 
 the* transmutations hypothecated by Mr. Dar- 
 win, yet they do know the " insurmountable 
 barrier " that " Nature " has erected against the 
 change of species. 1 They know that the Lin- 
 naean maxim Species naturae opus rests on 
 foundations too broad and deep to be shaken by 
 casual excess o. statement, or semblance of per- 
 plexity. While mere varieties, as superficial 
 excursions from type are technically termed, are 
 never mutually infertile, animals of different 
 species are physiologically contrasted with such 
 varieties by reciprocal repugnance or punitive 
 sterility. The mastiff and the terrier freely 
 inter-breed ; not so the horse and the ass : the 
 mongrel dog is a parent ; the hybrid mule is 
 not And the hybrid individual perishes, at 
 genus immortale manet. For it is a funda- 
 mental axiom that animals incapable of common 
 off-spring cannot have sprung from common 
 ancestors. 
 
 On this head therefore, the evidence against 
 Mr. Darwin's theory of the Origin of Species is 
 overwhelming ; and no one knows this better 
 than Mr. Huxley himself. When therefore he 
 tells us that he adopts Mr. Darwin's hypothesis, 
 " subject to the production of proof that physio- 
 logical species may be produced by selective 
 1 Vide Appendix, Note C
 
 Apes. 2 1 3 
 
 breeding," we are to understand by this that he 
 does not adopt it at all. For, as he is careful to 
 add, " Our acceptance of the Darwinian hypo- 
 thesis must be provisional so long as one link in 
 the chain of evidence is wanting ; and so long 
 as all the animals and plants certainly produced 
 by selective breeding from a common stock 
 are fertile with one another, that link will be 
 wanting." l 
 
 So long then as Nature remains what it is, 
 "that link," Mr. Huxley himself being witness, 
 will still be " wanting." And yet Mr. Darwin 
 can say " If a single link in this chain had 
 never existed " ! According to Mr. Darwin, 
 Man is what he is, because he has been inextric- 
 ably linked with the lower animals with the 
 " ascidian," with the " primordial form " by a 
 chain of which no " single link " is wanting. Ac- 
 cording to Mr. Huxley, Man is what he is, not- 
 withstanding the chasms in Mr. Darwin's imag- 
 inary chain : chasms which . Mr. Darwin cannot 
 cross except by " steps " imaginary and aerial, 
 which it is " not difficult to conceive " ; but still 
 "steps" which have no corresponding "links" in 
 the world of physiology and fact ; steps which 
 cannot be taken at all not even in imagination 
 without reversing the Constitution and Course 
 1 u Man's Place in Nature," p. 107.
 
 214 Scientific Sophisms. 
 
 t 
 
 of Nature. For Nature knows nothing of "a 
 group of animals having all the characters ex- 
 hibited by species " having " ever been origin- 
 ated by selection, whether artificial or natural," 1 
 
 But although such groups are utterly unknown 
 to Nature they are absolutely necessary to the 
 theory of Ascensive Development. Since there- 
 fore they cannot be found, they must be 
 " conceived " ; and to conceive them is, in Mr. 
 Darwin's opinion, " not difficult " : (" Facilis 
 descensus " /) and Prof. Haeckel has conceived 
 them accordingly. Again and again he tells 
 us that Monera, worms, and fishes, were "our 
 ancestors." We are reminded that when we 
 speak of " poor worms," or " miserable worms," 
 we should remember that "WITHOUT ANY 
 DOUBT a long series of extinct worms were our 
 direct ancestors." 8 He recognizes twenty-two 
 distinct stages in our evolution ; eight of which 
 belong to the invertebrate, and fourteen to the 
 vertebrate sub-kingdom. 
 
 Not however until he reaches the Sixth of 
 these imaginary stages does he arrive at the 
 earliest worms, the ArchelmintJies, now repre- 
 sented by the Turbellaria. In order to arrive 
 at these " earliest worms," he hypothecates as 
 
 1 " Lay Sermons," p. 295. 
 * " Anthropogenic," p. 399,
 
 Apes. 215 
 
 number Five, the Gastrcea (Urdarmthiere) a 
 class of animals purely imaginary. They are 
 placed here because required as ancestors for 
 the Gastrula, itself an imaginary order, derived 
 from embryological exigencies. 
 
 No. 8 is another imaginary type, called by 
 Haeckel Chordonia, because they "developed 
 themselves from the Annelida, by the formation 
 of a spinal marrow and a chorda dorsalis " ! x It 
 is well known that between the Invertebrata 
 and the Vertebrata there is no transition form. 
 It is also known (by Mr. Darwin) that, by 
 means of the Ascidians, we are supposed to 
 "have at last gained a clue to the source whence 
 the Vertebrata have been derived." z But as to 
 that " group of marine animals resembling the 
 larvae of existing Ascidians," which were our 
 "most ancient progenitors in the kingdom of 
 the Vertebrata " : 8 who they were, or what, 
 or whence, is known to no one but Professor 
 Haeckel ! True, even he does not profess to 
 have any producible evidence that such animals 
 ever existed ; they are destitute of any single 
 living representative ; there is no fossil evidence 
 of their former existence ; their sole raison d'etre 
 
 1 " Natiirliche Schopfungsgeschichte," p. 583. 
 * "Descent of Man," vol. i. p. 205. 
 Ibid.
 
 216 Scientific Sophisms. 
 
 is, that they are required by the hypothesis. 
 In Haeckel's Stammbaum here they are accord- 
 ingly as veritable as Falstaff's men in buckram 
 with no extinct or living representatives, but 
 being, for all that, " undoubtedly " the progen- 
 itors of all the Vertebrata, through the Ascid- 
 ians. Not that they were always so, however. 
 Far from it. But anticipating the advice of 
 Mrs. Louisa Chick they knew how much de- 
 pended on them, and they " made an effort." l 
 It succeeded beyond all expectation. They 
 " developed THEMSELVES " ! How ? By the 
 simplest possible process, in the easiest possible 
 manner. Nothing more than " the formation 
 of a spinal marrow and a chorda dorsalis " ! 
 
 (14), The Sozura, is an order of Amphibia 
 interpolated " because required as a necessary 
 transition stage between the true Amphibia," 
 (13,) and (15) The Protamniota, or general 
 stem of the mammalia, reptiles, and birds. 
 " What the Protamniota were like," says Prof. 
 Huxley, "I do not suppose any one is in a 
 position to say." 2 And yet we are told that 
 
 1 " It's necessary for you to make an effort, and per 
 haps a very great and painful effort which you are not 
 disposed to make ; but this is a world of effort you know, 
 Fanny, and we must never yield, when so much depends 
 upon us. Come ! Try ! "Dombey &> Son, ch. i. 
 
 2 " Critiques and Addresses," p. 318.
 
 Apes. 34 f 
 
 " the Protamniota split up into two stems, one 
 that of the Mammalia, the other common to 
 Reptilia and Aves" 1 And they are " proved " 
 to have exjsted ( although no one knows what 
 they were like ) because they were the neces- 
 sary precursors of 
 
 (16), The Pro-mammalia, the earliest pro- 
 genitors of all the Mammalia. And these were 
 followed by (17,) Marsupialia, or Kangaroos. 
 " But," says Prof. Huxley, " the existing Opos- 
 sums and Kangaroos are certainly extremely 
 modified and remote from their ancestors the 
 ' Prodidelphiaj of which we have not, at pre- 
 sent, the slightest knowledge. The mode of 
 origin of the Monodelphia from these is a. very 
 difficult problem, for the most part left open 
 by Professor Haeckel." 8 Observe : Of these 
 Prodidelphia " we have not, at present, the 
 slightest knowledge." And yet this knowledge 
 we " certainly " have : First, that they are the 
 " ancestors " of " the existing Opossums and 
 Kangaroos " ; and Second, that these Opossums 
 and Kangaroos " are certainly extremely modi- 
 fied and remote from their ancestors the Prodi- 
 ddphia" No wonder that " the mode of origin 
 of the Monodelphia from these is a very difficult 
 
 1 " Critiques and Addresses," p. 317. 
 * Ibid., p. 318.
 
 218 Scientific Sophisms. 
 
 problem." No wonder-either that though " tke 
 phylum of the Vertebrata is the most interest- 
 ing of all, and is admirably discussed by Prof. 
 Haeckel," l still it certainly does include " a few 
 points which seem," even to Prof. Huxley, " to 
 be open to discussion." 8 
 
 And now we have reached the beginning of 
 the end. For (18) are the Prosimice, or half- 
 apes$ as the indris and loris. And from these, 
 through (19,) the Menocerca, or tailed apes, we 
 reach, at last, (20,) the Anthropoides, or man-like 
 apes, represented by the modern orang, gibbon, 
 gorilla, and chimpanzee. Not amongst these 
 however are we to look for " the direct ances- 
 tors of man, but amongst the unknown extinct 
 apes of the Miocene." The Pithecanthropi (21), 
 or dumb ape-men, come next ; an unknown 
 race the nearest modern representatives of 
 which are cretins and idiots. s They must Jiave 
 existed, in order to furnish means of transition 
 to the final stage (thus far !) i.e., (22) the 
 Homines, or true men, who " developed them- 
 selves " from their imaginary fathers of the pre- 
 ceding class, " by a gradual conversion of brute 
 bowlings into articulate speech." 
 
 1 "Critiques and Addresses," p. 317. 
 
 Ibid. 
 
 1 " Natiirliche Schopfungsgeschichte," p. 59*.
 
 Apes. 2 1 9 
 
 Thus then, at last, we reach the goal : 
 " There was an Ape." l There " must have been? 
 or there could not have been a man. 3 The 
 exigency is urgent, and the affirmation easy. It 
 is only when we proceed to particulars that 
 difficulties present themselves. Where was this 
 Ape ? And when ? And what ? No man can 
 tell. 
 
 Haeckel emphatically protests against the 
 notion that the modern anthropoid apes can be 
 regarded as our direct progenitors. " Our ape- 
 like ancestors," he says, " are long since extinct. 
 Perchance their fossil remains may some time 
 be found in the tertiary deposits of Southern 
 Asia or Africa. They must nevertheless be 
 ranked amongst the tailless catarhine anthro- 
 poid apes." 3 
 
 Mr. Darwin includes Europe in the field which 
 has been so vainly searched for this missing 
 link. " It is probable," he tells us, " that Africa 
 was formerly inhabited by extinct apes, closely 
 allied to the gorilla and chimpanzee ; and as 
 these two species are now man's nearest allies, 
 it is somewhat more probable that our early 
 progenitors lived on the African continent than 
 
 1 Vide Appendix, Note D. 
 
 Ibid., Note E. 
 
 1 " Natiirliche SchSpfungsgeschichte," p. 577.
 
 220 Scientific Sophisms. 
 
 elsewhere. But it is useless to speculate on this 
 subject, for an ape nearly as large as a man 
 . . . existed in Europe during the Upper 
 Miocene period ; and since so remote a period 
 the earth has certainly undergone many great 
 revolutions, and there has been ample time for 
 migration on the largest scale." l Man's pro- 
 genitors therefore, like this ape, may have been 
 Europeans, yet Europe, no less than Africa or 
 Asia, has hitherto utterly failed to furnish any 
 fossil remains, either of the immediate, or of the 
 remote, progenitors of man. 
 
 "The fossil remains of man hitherto dis- 
 covered," says Prof. Huxley, " do not seem to 
 me to take us appreciably nearer to that lower 
 pithecoid form, by the modification of which 
 he has, probably, become what he is. ... 
 Where then must we look for primeval man ? 
 Was the oldest Homo sapiens pliocene, or 
 miocene, or yet more ancient ? In still older 
 strata do the fossilized bones of an ape more 
 anthropoid, or a man more pithecoid than any 
 yet known await the researches of some un- 
 born palaeontologist ? Time will show." 
 
 So be it : dies declarabit. But, meantime this 
 doctrine of man's derivation from an unknown 
 ape, in an undiscovered continent, rests by the 
 1 " Descent of Man," vol. i. p. 199.
 
 Apes. 221 
 
 admissions of its advocates not on knowledge, 
 but on the want of knowledge. Absolutely 
 powerless to derive man from the ape, it is not 
 less powerless to derive the cardinal ape from 
 the primordial form. And yet it is in the name 
 of Science that we are presented with this 
 paraded pedantry of Nescience, and are asked 
 to believe that " IN THE DIM OBSCURITY of the 
 Past, we can SEE " l the unreal nonentities, the 
 airy nothings, required by the "theoretic con- 
 ception," as they " must have " existed " once 
 upon a time " ! a 
 
 1 " Descent of Man," vol. ii. p. 389. 
 * Vide Appendix, Note F.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 MEN. 
 
 "THE question of questions for mankind," says 
 Prof. Huxley, " the problem which underlies all 
 others, and is more deeply interesting than any 
 other is the ascertainment of the place which 
 Man occupies in nature, and of his relations to 
 the universe of things." 1 For the most part 
 indeed, men are unreflecting as well as unin- 
 quiring ; " But in every age, one or two restless 
 spirits, blessed with that constructive genius 
 which can only build on a secure foundation," * 
 have adopted sound principles, and proceeded 
 by sure methods, such as those which have now 
 led the Professor to perceive that " though the 
 quaint forms of Centaurs and Satyrs have an 
 existence only in the realms of art, creatures 
 approaching man more nearly than they in 
 essential structure, and yet as thoroughly 
 brutal as the goat's or horse's half of the 
 
 1 " Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature," p. 57. 
 1 Ibid.
 
 Scientific Sophisms. 223 
 
 mythical compound, are now not only known 
 but notorious." 1 
 
 Of these "creatures approaching man in 
 essential structure," yet " thoroughly brutal," 
 the gorilla was once supposed to be the chief. 
 But the day of De Chaillu is over ; " because, in 
 my opinion, so long as his narrative remains in 
 its present state of unexplained and apparently 
 inexplicable confusion, it has no claim to 
 original authority respecting any subject what- 
 soever. It may be truth, but it is not 
 evidence." 8 
 
 The comforting opinion that we had, as men, 
 a cerebral distinction, is also now (alas !) no 
 more. For we are now assured by Prof. 
 Huxley, in direct contradiction to the reiterated 
 declarations of Prof. Owen, that " so far from 
 the posterior lobe, the posterior cornu, and the 
 hippocampus minor being structures peculiar to 
 and characteristic of man, as they have been 
 over and over again asserted to be, even after 
 the publication of the clearest demonstration of 
 the reverse, it is precisely these structures which 
 are the most marked cerebral characters com- 
 mon to man with the apes. They are amongst 
 the most distinctly Simian peculiarities which 
 
 1 " Man's Place in Nature," p. I, 
 Ibid,, p. 54.
 
 2 24 Men. 
 
 the human organism exhibits." Thus, then, it 
 appears that while Owen and Httxley differ, 
 apes and men do not It is an unfortunate 
 circumstance that the more we are developed 
 from apes, the more we differ from each other, 
 
 But are we then *' developed from apes " after 
 all ? Is this so .certain ? This " question of 
 questions for mankind " how shall we answer it? 
 Shall we accept the dictum of Prof. Huxley, and 
 say that " man is in substance and in structure 
 one with the brutes " ? Or shall we pronounce 
 that dictum a mere " theoretic conception," 
 " unverified by observation and experiment " ? 
 In either case, what are the facts ? 
 
 1. And first, as to cerebral structure. 
 
 " It is dear," says Prof. Huxley, " that man 
 differs less from the chimpanzee or the orang 
 than these do even from the monkeys ; and that 
 the difference between the brains of the chim- 
 panzee and of man is almost insignificant, when 
 compared with that between the chimpanzee 
 brain and that of a lemur." 
 
 2. As to cerebral weight, however, on the 
 other hand, " It must not be overlooked that 
 tbere is a very striking difference in absolute 
 mass and weight between the lowest human 
 binin and that of the highest ape, a difference 
 which is all the more remarkable when we recol-
 
 Scientific Sophisms. 225 
 
 lect that a full-grown Gorilla is probably pretty 
 nearly twice as heavy as a Bosjesman, or as 
 many an European woman." " It may be 
 doubted," adds the Professor, " whether a 
 healthy human adult brain ever weighed less 
 than 31 or 32 ounces, or that the heaviest 
 Gorilla brain has exceeded 20 ounces." x 
 
 3. " This is a very noteworthy circumstance, 
 and doubtless will one day help to furnish an 
 explanation of the great gulf which intervenes 
 between the lowest man and the highest ape in 
 intellectual power, but it has little systematic 
 value " [Why ?] " for the simple reason that 
 . . . Regarded systematically, the cerebral 
 differences of man and apes are not of more 
 than generic value, his Family distinction resting 
 chiefly on his dentition, his pelvis, and his lower 
 limbs." * 
 
 4. On this latter topic, however, Mr. Huxley 
 had previously said, " The pelvis, or bony girdle 
 of the hips, of man is a strikingly human part of 
 his organization." 3 Adding, " But now let us 
 turn to a nobler and more characteristic organ 
 that by which the human frame seems to be, 
 and indeed is, so strangely distinguished from 
 
 1 " Man's Place in Nature," pi 102. 
 
 * Ibid., p. 103. 
 
 Ibid., p. 76.
 
 226 Men. 
 
 . all others I mean the skull." And then, after 
 giving the cubical capacity of the smallest 
 human cranium, and of " the most capacious 
 Gorilla skull yet measured," he says, " Let us 
 assume, lor simplicity's sake, that the lowest 
 man's skull has twice the capacity of that of the 
 highest Gorilla." l 
 
 5. The sum o* the statements already quoted, 
 then, is this : The " Family distinction " of the 
 genus Homo is to be ,iound not in his higher, but 
 in his lower, qualities ; "resting chiefly," not on 
 the size of his skull, nor on the weight of his 
 brain, but " on his dentition, his pelvis, and his 
 lower limbs." And yet, notwithstanding this, 
 
 6. " That by which the human frame is so 
 strongly distinguished from all others " is not 
 the baser structure, but the nobler substance ; 
 not his lower limbs, but "a nobler and more 
 characteristic organ . . . the skull." 
 
 7. Prof. Huxley need not think it strange if, 
 in despair of reconciling the conflicting members 
 of this duplex thesis that Man's " family dis- 
 tinction " is not cranial, and yet that by which 
 he is "so strongly distinguished from all others" 
 is cranial ; that " the great gulf in intellectual 
 power which intervenes between the lowest man 
 and the highest ape " is of little moment, and 
 
 1 " Man's Place in Nature," p. 77.
 
 Scientific Sophisms. 
 
 yet that the organ which indicates that gulf is 
 his " nobler and more characteristic organ ; 
 some readers should relegate it to that category 
 in which he himself has placed a dictum of 
 Prof. Owen's, characterizing it as a "quci-qu- 
 versal proposition . . . which may be read 
 backwards, forwards, or sideways, with exactly 
 the same amount of signification." l 
 
 8. But " qua-qua versal " as it is, it does not 
 stand alone. For after we have learned that 
 even when regarded on the lowest grounds, " the 
 pelvis, or bony girdle of the hips, of man is a 
 strikingly hwnan part of his organization," and 
 that his Brain is strikingly human in a much 
 higher degree, since it is his Brain, and not his 
 pelvis, which is " to furnish an explanation of 
 the great gulf which intervenes between the 
 lowest man and the highest ape m intellectual 
 power ; " we are told as if to neutralize this 
 concurrent testimony from "structure" and 
 from "substance," that "the difference in 
 weight of brain between the highest and lowest 
 man is far greater, both relatively and abso- 
 lutely, than that between the lowest man and 
 the highest ape." And, in a word, " whatever 
 system of organs be studied, the comparison of 
 their modifications in the ape series leads to one 
 1 Man's Place in Nature," p. 106.
 
 2e8 Men. 
 
 and the same result that the structural differ- 
 ences which separate man from the gorilla and 
 the chimpanzee, are not so great as those which 
 separate the gorilla from the lower apes." 
 
 9. Even this latest dictum, if it had been 
 allowed to stand alone, would have been so far 
 definite as to redeem it from the character of 
 " qua-quei-versal." But it is not thus allowed. 
 No sooner has it been submissively accepted ; 
 no sooner have we brought ourselves with due 
 docility to admit that " the structural differences 
 between man and even the highest apes are 
 small and insignificant," than Prof. Huxley 
 protests he has been misunderstood. " Let me 
 take this opportunity then," says he, " of dis- 
 tinctly asserting, on the contrary, that they 
 are great and significant ; that every bone of a 
 Gorilla bears marks by which it might be dis- 
 tinguished from the corresponding bone of a 
 man ; and that in the present creation, at any 
 rate, no intermediate link bridges over the gap 
 between Homo and Troglodytes," 1 
 
 IO. This would be conclusive, if only it were 
 final. But ii is not final. It is neutralized in 
 the next sentence but one : " Remember, if you 
 will, that there is no existing link between man 
 and the gorilla ; but do not forget that there is a 
 1 " Man's Place in Nature," p. 104.
 
 Scientific Sophisms. 229 
 
 no less sharp line of demarcation, a no less com- 
 plete absence of any transitional form, between 
 the gorilla and the orang, or the orang and the 
 gibbon. I say not less sharp, though it is some- 
 what narrower." l 
 
 II. Can anything be plainer ? Prof. Huxley 
 anticipates the result "On all sides I shall, 
 hear the cry ' We are men and women, not a 
 mere better sort of apes, a little longer in the legs 
 more compact in the foot, and bigger in brain 
 than your brutal chimpanzees and gorillas. 
 The power of knowledge, the conscience of good 
 and evil, the pitiful tenderness of human affec- 
 tions, raise us out of all real fellowship with the 
 brutes, however closely they may seem to ap- 
 proximate us.' " And what is his answer to the 
 objurgation he thus anticipates ? 
 
 Here it is: "I have endeavoured to show that 
 no absolute structural line of demarcation, wider 
 than that between the animals which im- 
 mediately succeed us in the scale, can be drawn 
 between the animal world and ourselves, and I 
 may add the expression of my belief that the 
 attempt to draw a psychical distinction is 
 equally futile, and that even the highest faculties 
 of feeling and of intellect begin to germinate in 
 lower forms of life." 3 
 
 1 M Man's Place in Nature." * Ibid.> p. 109.
 
 210 Men. 
 
 12. Add to this the further declaration that 
 * our reverence for the ability of manhood will 
 not be lessened by the knowledge that man is, in 
 substance and in structure, one with the brutes." 1 
 And then contrast with both the words that 
 follow. First, there is no physical distinction : 
 "no absolute structural line of demarcation." 
 Second, there is no psychical distinction : for 
 " the attempt to draw a psychical distinction is 
 equally futile." And third, " even the highest 
 faculties of feeling and of intellect begin to 
 germinate in lower forms of life." And yet, the 
 very next sentence is in these words : 
 
 13. "At the same time no one is more 
 strongly convinced than I am of the vastness of 
 the gulf between civilized man and the brutes : 
 or is more certain that whether from them or 
 not, he is assuredly not of them." 2 
 
 To harmonize discordant and conflicting as- 
 sertions like these would be not merely to re- 
 concile the irreconcilable ; it would be to show 
 that opposites are identical. Yet until that is 
 done, what else can we say of them but that 
 which their author has already said so wittily 
 of his opponents ? They are merely " qua" -qui- 
 versal propositions . . . which may be 
 
 1 "Man's Place in Nature," p. 1 12. 
 * Ibid., p. 1 10.
 
 Scientific Sophisms, 231 
 
 read backwards, forwards, or sideways, with 
 exactly the same amount of signification." 
 
 14. We revert then to our first enquiry: 
 What are the facts ? Prof. Huxley's facts are 
 opposed to his conclusions. When he has 
 admitted that between the lowest man and the 
 highest ape there is a general, a particular, and a 
 wide distinction ; a distinction which has left its 
 marks on " every bone " ; he then proceeds to 
 lay great stress on the fact that, between one 
 family of man and another the difference is 
 greater than between the lowest man and the 
 highest ape." l But when he has done this, he 
 proceeds in each case to show that there is a 
 far greater difference between this same ape, 
 and the apes of some other remaining class. 
 But these two statements furnish the import- 
 ant corollary that " there is the same, or an 
 analogous kind of distinction between one 
 family of man and another, and between one 
 family of ape and another." The idea thus 
 suggested is subversive of his theory : viz., 
 that the families of men are sprung from one 
 type, and the families of apes from another; 
 in other words, there is a generic as well as a 
 specific difference between men and apes." 
 
 15. Prof. Huxley apart, it is allowed on all 
 
 1 " Man's Place in Nature," p. 78.
 
 232 Men. 
 
 hands that socially, morally, religiously, and 
 historically, men and apes are generically dis- 
 tinct. But this distinction as matter of fact 
 either involves a generic distinction between 
 the physiological structure of men and apes, or 
 it does not. If it does, then Mr. Huxley's 
 theory is disproved by the fact ; and man is 
 not " in substance and in structure one with the 
 brutes." If it does not, then " the cause of this 
 distinction must be looked for elsewhere, and 
 science will have to admit that in man there is 
 an immaterial element which physiology cannot 
 grasp," an element adequate to his elevation 
 at a height so immeasurably above the rest of 
 the animal world. 
 
 1 6. Nor is it to be forgotten that, even by 
 Prof. Huxley himself, this elevation of man 
 above the ape is regarded comparatively as 
 being not merely "immeasurable," but "prac- 
 tically infinite." " Believing as I do, with 
 Cuvier," he says, " that the possession of articu- 
 late speech is the grand distinctive character 
 of man," ..." the primary cause of the 
 UN MEASURABLE and practically infinite diver- 
 gence of the Human from the Simian Stirps." 2 
 
 By universal consent then, nothing is more 
 
 1 " Man's Place in Nature," p. 103 n. 
 * Ibid.y p. 103 .
 
 Scientific Sophisms. 233 
 
 certain than that Man is chiefly characterized 
 by those psychical distinctions which in such 
 treatises as that of Prof. Huxley's now cited,- are 
 either left entirely out of view, or dismissed in 
 a passing sentence. " Conscience, remorse, am- 
 bition, sense of responsibility, improvableness 
 of reason, immense advances in knowledge, 
 self-cultivation, sesthetical sensibilities these 
 and other qualities of the Homo sapiens, not 
 to speak of religious sentiments, broadly and 
 plainly distinguish man from all the Simians 
 and Troglodytes. Grant, for a moment, (what 
 is manifestly inconsistent with the previous 
 statement, that ' the structural differences be- 
 tween man and the highest apes are great and 
 significant ') that man is one in substance and 
 structure with these creatures ; grant even that 
 their instincts simulate our reason in some 
 remarkable instances ; and when all is granted, 
 the vast and varied differences just intimated 
 remain as towering distinctions. To these is 
 added that gift of articulate speech which, 
 though mechanically organized, imparts su- 
 preme value to them all ; which makes man a 
 communicative being ; which gives to a lecturer, 
 such as Professor Huxley, that power to in- 
 struct, amuse and illustrate, by which he is raised 
 immeasurably above the cleverest ape that
 
 234 Men. 
 
 ever climbed a tree, or built a nest, or buried 
 his dead companion under the dried leaves of 
 an African forest." l 
 
 17. As to the alleged ancestry of Man from 
 the brutes, this, then, is certain : " that whether 
 from them or not, he is assuredly not of them." 
 
 But is he "from them " ? He who answers 
 this question in the affirmative affirms what he 
 cannot even pretend to prove. The evidence, 
 such as it is, in every particular, and in the most 
 positive terms, endorses the direct negative of 
 the proposition which on any theory of Ascen- 
 sive Development it is found necessary to main- 
 tain. It is Mr. Darwin himself who tells us of 
 " the great break in the organic chain between 
 man and his nearest allies, which cannot be 
 bridged over by any extinct or living species." 3 
 "The fossil remains of man hitherto discovered," 
 says Professor Huxley, " do not seem to take us 
 appreciably nearer to that lower pithecoid form " 
 from which it is conjectured but only con- 
 jectured that he sprang. It is nothing less 
 than the utter destitution of evidence in support 
 of the unverified " theoretic conception " that 
 constrains even Professor Huxley to ask, "Where 
 then must we look for primaeval man ? " 
 
 1 The Athencsum, No. 1844, p. 288. 
 * " The Descent of Man," vol. i. p. 200.
 
 Scientific Sophisms. 235 
 
 18. "In the first place, it is manifest that 
 man, the apes, and the half-apes cannot be 
 arranged in a single ascending series, of which 
 man is the term and culmination. 
 
 " We may indeed, by selecting one organ or 
 one set of parts, and confining our attention 
 to it, arrange the different forms in a more or 
 less simple manner. But if all the organs be 
 taken into account, the cross relations and inter- 
 dependencies become in the highest degree com- 
 plex and difficult to unravel." l This indeed is 
 generally admitted, but still the theory pro- 
 pounded by Mr. Darwin, and widely accepted, 
 is that "the resemblances between man and 
 apes are such that man may be conceived to 
 have descended from some ancient members of 
 the broad-breastboned group of apes," and of 
 all existing apes, the gorilla is regarded as 
 standing towards him in closer relationship 
 than any other. 
 
 But what evidence of common origin is 
 afforded by community of structure? "The 
 human structural characters are shared by so 
 many and such diverse forms, that it is impos- 
 sible to arrange even groups of genera in a 
 single ascending series from the aye-aye to man 
 
 1 "Lessons from Nature," p. 174. By Prof. Mivart 
 (Murray, 1876.)
 
 236 Men. 
 
 (to say nothing of so arranging the several 
 single genera), if all the structural resemblances 
 are taken into account 
 
 " If the number of wrist-bones be deemed 
 a special mark of affinity between the gorilla, 
 chimpanzee, and man, why are we not to con- 
 sider it also a special mark of affinity between 
 the indris and man ? That it should be so con- 
 sidered, however, would be deemed an absurdity 
 by every evolutionist. 
 
 " If the proportions of the arms speak in 
 favour of the chimpanzee, why do not the 
 proportions of the legs serve to promote the 
 rank- of the gibbons? 
 
 " If the obliquely-ridged teeth of Simia and 
 Troglodytes point to community of origin, how 
 can we deny a similar community of origin, as 
 thus estimated, to the howling monkeys and 
 galagos ? 
 
 " The liver of the gibbons proclaims them 
 almost human ; that of the gorilla declares him 
 comparatively brutal. 
 
 " The ear-lobule of the gorilla makes him our 
 cousin ; but his tongue is eloquent in his own 
 dispraise. 
 
 " The slender loris from amidst the half-apes, 
 can put in many a claim to be our shadow 
 refracted, as it were, through a lemurine prism. 
 
 R
 
 Scientific Sophisms. 237 
 
 " The lower American apes meet us with what 
 seems 'the front of Jove himself,' compared 
 with the gigantic, but low-browed denizens of 
 tropical Western Africa. 
 
 " In fact, in the words of the illustrious Dutch 
 naturalists, Messrs. Schroeder, Van der Kolk, 
 and Vrolik, the lines of affinity existing between 
 different Primates construct rather a network 
 than a ladder. 
 
 " It is indeed a tangled web, the meshes of 
 which no naturalist has as yet unravelled by 
 the aid of natural selection. Nay, more, these 
 complex affinities form such a net for the use of 
 the teleological retiarius as it would be difficult 
 for his Lucretian antagonist to evade, even with 
 the countless turns and doublings of Darwinian 
 evolutions." 1 
 
 And yet we are told by Professor Tyndall * 
 that the naturalist whose mind is " most deeply 
 stored with the choicest materials of the tele- 
 ologist,' ; rejects teleology. Does he then effect 
 his escape from the reticulations of the complex^ 
 affinities now specified ? By no means. But 
 he refers the spontaneous and independent 
 appearance of these similar structures to 
 " atavism," and " reversion ; " to the appearance 
 
 1 Professor Mivart, ut sup,) pp. 174,175. 
 * ' Belfast Address."
 
 238 Men. 
 
 that is, in modern descendants, of ancient and 
 sometimes long-lost structural characters, which 
 are supposed to have formerly existed in 
 ancestors more or less remote, and wholly 
 hypothetical. 
 
 But if this were true : "if man and the orang 
 are diverging descendants of a creature with 
 certain cerebral characters, then that remote 
 ancestor must also have had the wrist of the 
 chimpanzee, the voice of a long-armed ape, the 
 blade-bone of the gorilla, the chin of the siam- 
 ang, the skull-dome of an American ape, the 
 ischium of a slender loris, the whiskers and 
 beard of a saki, the liver and stomach of the 
 gibbons, and the number of other characters 
 in which the various several forms of higher 
 or lower Primates respectively approximate to 
 man. 
 
 " But to assert this is as much as to say that 
 low down in the scale of Primates was an an- 
 cestral form so like man that it might well be 
 called an homunculus ; and we have the virtual 
 "pre-existence of man's body supposed, in order 
 to account for the actual first appearance of 
 that body as we know it : a supposition mani- 
 festly absurd if put forward as an explanation." * 
 
 19. Nor is it an insignificant circumstance, 
 1 M Lessons from Nature," p. 176.
 
 Scientific Sophisms. 239 
 
 as indicating the wholly hypothetical character 
 of the ape ancestry thus assigned to man, that 
 neither on the earth nor under the earth is any 
 trace of such an ancestry discoverable. The 
 number is not small of those who prefer to 
 search the record of the rocks for " Vestiges " 
 of Creation rather than for Footprints of the 
 Creator ; but no vestige of man's ascent from 
 the ape is yet producible. In default therefore 
 of evidence adducible from that which is, we 
 are liberally supplied with asseverations as to 
 that which might, or " must have been." 
 
 There must, for example, have been " a series 
 of forms graduating insensibly from some ape- 
 like creature to man as he now exists." l Now 
 of the series thus alleged, every single member 
 was ex hypotJiesi superior to the lower forms 
 from which he sprang. And Mr. Darwin's 
 doctrine affirms "the survival of the fittest." 
 But while the half-apes are with us to this day 
 the half-men are nowhere. The ape-mothers 
 that found themselves, in the last term of the 
 series, strangely producing men, have perished ; 
 while the monkeys, unequal to the production 
 even of apes, have survived. According to the 
 hypothesis the fittest should survive ; according 
 to the facts the fittest have perished. 
 
 1 " Descent of Man," vol. i. p. 235.
 
 240 Men. 
 
 But this is not all. Besides this imaginary 
 "series of forms," the theory requires further 
 a process of " graduating insensibly." And of 
 this process there is not only no proof, but the 
 evidence, such as it is, points in the direction 
 of disproof. It is Mr. Darwin himself who says, 
 " Breaks incessantly occur in all parts of the 
 series, some being wide, sharp, and defined, 
 others less so in various degrees ; as between 
 the orang and its nearest allies between the 
 Tarsius and the other Lemuridae." The " intel- 
 lectual figment " is in evil case when it postu- 
 lates a process of graduation so gradual as to 
 be imperceptible, yet so abrupt as to exhibit 
 "breaks " which " incessantly occur in all parts 
 of the series," not excluding even " breaks " 
 which are " wide, sharp, and defined." And 
 yet, across these " breaks," Mr. Darwin's theory, 
 by Mr. Darwin's ingenuity, is made to swing its 
 ponderous bulk with an adroit dexterity that 
 might have been envied, in the depths of his 
 African forest, by the ancestral Gorilla him- 
 self: 
 
 " All these breaks depend merely on the 
 
 number of related forms that have become 
 
 extinct." l Could anything be more simple ? 
 
 The " breaks " are there indeed : but they are 
 
 1 " Descent of Man," voL i. pp. 200, 201.
 
 Scientific Sophisms. 241 
 
 there only in the absence of the " related forms " 
 "graduating insensibly." You have only to 
 imagine the " forms " and the " breaks " will 
 disappear. 
 
 And yet, of these same " forms " it is all the 
 while most certain that they cannot be de- 
 scribed ; they are not known to have existed ; 
 they are not known to have been " related " ; 
 they are not known to " have become extinct." 
 Nor are the " breaks " more real. They are 
 breaks only on the assumption of the hypo- 
 thesis : not otherwise. And the second as- 
 sumption has no power to confer validity on 
 the first 
 
 20. From this tissue of assumptions we revert 
 to the facts. No less a writer than Mr. Wallace, 
 "the independent originator and by far the best 
 expounder of the theory of Natural Selection," 
 differs to to ccelo from Mr. Darwin on the question 
 of the Origin of Man. For the creation of man, 
 as he is, Mr. Wallace postulates the necessity 
 of the intervention of an external Will. He 
 observes that even the lowest types of savages 
 are in possession of capacities far beyond any 
 use to which they can apply them in their 
 present condition, and therefore they could not 
 have been evolved from the mere necessities
 
 242 Men. 
 
 of their environment. These capacities have 
 respect to future possibilities of culture. But 
 prolepsis, anticipation, involves intention and 
 a will. 
 
 He contends further, 1 that even as to his 
 body, Man is a clear and palpable and positive 
 exception to the theory of Evolution. To 
 produce the human frame required, he says, 
 the intervention of some special agency. He 
 adverts to the peculiar disposition of the hair 
 on man, especially that nakedness of the back 
 which is common to all races of men, and to 
 the peculiar construction of the hand and foot. 
 " The. hand of man," he tells us, " contains latent 
 capacities and powers which are unused by 
 savages, and must have been even less used by 
 palaeolithic man and his still ruder predecessors. 
 It has all the appearance of an organ prepared 
 for the use of civilized man, and one which 
 was required to render civilization possible." 
 
 Again : speaking of the " wonderful power, 
 range, flexibility, and sweetness of the musical 
 sounds producible by the human larynx," he 
 adds, " the habits of savages give no indication 
 of how this faculty could have been developed." 
 ..." The singing of savages is a more 
 or less monotonous howling, and the females 
 1 u Natural Selection," pp. 332-360.
 
 Scientific Sophisms. 243 
 
 seldom sing at all." " It seems as if the organ 
 had been prepared in anticipation of the future 
 progress of man, since it contains latent capa- 
 cities which are useless to him in his earlier 
 condition." l 
 
 Mr. Wallace is in perfect agreement also with 
 Christian theism in the value he attaches to 
 man's "capacity to form ideal conceptions of 
 space and time, of eternity and infinity the 
 capacity for intense artistic feelings of pleasure, 
 in form, colour, and composition and those 
 abstract notions of form and number which 
 render geometry possible," as well as with 
 respect to the non-bestial origin of moral per- 
 ception." 3 
 
 And beyond all this, he considers Man as not 
 only placed " apart, as the head and culminating 
 point of the grand series of organic nature, but 
 as in some degree a new and distinct order of 
 being." ..." When the first rude spear 
 was formed to assist in the chase ; when fire 
 was first used to cook his food ; when the first 
 
 1 On this subject, indeed, even Mr. Darwin himself 
 admits that " neither the enjoyment nor the capacity of 
 producing musical notes are faculties of the least direct 
 use to man in reference to his ordinary habits of life ; 
 they must be ranked amongst the most mysterious with 
 which he is endowed." Descent of Man, vol. ii. p. 333. 
 
 8 " Natural Selection," pp. 351, 352.
 
 244 Mtn. 
 
 seed was sown or shoot planted, a grand revo- 
 lution was effected in nature, a revolution which 
 in all the previous ages of the earth's history 
 has had no parallel, for a being had arisen who 
 was no longer necessarily subject to change with 
 the changing universe, a being who was in some 
 degree superior to nature, inasmuch as he knew 
 how to control and regulate her action, and 
 could keep himself in harmony with her, not by 
 a change in body, but by an advance in mind." 
 
 Against facts like these, of what avail are 
 Mr. Darwin's ingenious speculations ? The 
 answer may be given in the words of Professor 
 Mivart. It is the same high authority that 
 pronounced Mr. Darwin's " Origin of Species " 
 to be "a puerile hypothesis," and its distinc- 
 tive characteristic, "a conception utterly irra- 
 tional; " l who now adds, 
 
 "Thus, then, in our judgment the author of 
 the ' Descent of Man ' has UTTERLY FAILED 
 in the only part of his work which is really 
 important : . . . and if Mr. Darwin's failure 
 should lead to an increase of philosophic culture 
 on the part of physicists, we may therein find 
 some consolation for the injurious effects which 
 his work is likely to produce on too many of 
 our half-educated classes." * 
 
 1 "Lessons from Nature," p. 300. * Ibid., p. 184.
 
 Scientific Sophisms. 2 45 
 
 Nor is this all. Man is something more than 
 an intellectual animal. He is a free moral 
 agent : and, as such, and with the infinite 
 future which that freedom opens out before him 
 he differs from all the rest of the visible 
 universe by " a distinction so profound that no 
 one of those which separate other visible beings 
 is comparable with it. The gulf which lies 
 between his being as a whole, and that of the 
 highest brute, marks off vastly more than a 
 mere kingdom of material beings, and man, so 
 considered, differs far more from an elephant 
 or a gorilla than do these from the dust of the 
 earth on which they tread." 1 
 
 1 M Lessons from Nature," p. 184.
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 ANIMA MUNDI. 
 
 " There lives and works 
 A Soul in all things : and that Soul is God." 
 
 Cowper. 
 
 THIS witness is true : and its truth is not im- 
 paired by the ignorant positiveness of Agnosti- 
 cism, or by the positive ignorance of Atheism. 
 As to Atheism, indeed, the verdict already pro- 
 nounced, after a most minute and searching 
 investigation, is found to . be unalterable : 
 "Every part of the universe is an argument 
 against atheism as a theory thereof." l Ag- 
 nosticism, despite its pretensions to Knowledge, 
 as its very name imports, is a mere confession 
 of Ignorance. And even that ignorance, con- 
 fronted by the facts of the universe, ceases to 
 be possible when its votaries are willing to cease 
 to be -"willingly ignorant." 
 
 Is there, or is there not, "a Soul in all 
 
 1 Theodore Parker : Theism, Atheism, and the Popular 
 Theology, p. 10.
 
 Scientific Sophisms. 247 
 
 things ? " Theism affirms, Atheism denies, 
 Agnosticism ignores, the existence of any such 
 Soul. To put an end to controversy the appeal 
 is made to facts. Is the affirmation of Theism 
 unsustained by evidence? Is the negation of 
 Atheism consistent' with the admissions which 
 Atheism itself has been compelled to make ? 
 Is the ignorance of Agnosticism compatible 
 with the knowledge to which Agnosticism 
 makes such arrogant pretensions ? 
 
 I. "In all things." Let us begin at the be- 
 ginning. It is in the phenomena of crystalliza- 
 tion that Professor Tyndall finds the foundation 
 of all higher phenomena life, growth, repro- 
 duction, intelligence, will. He believes "that 
 the formation of a crystal, a plant, or an animal, 
 is a purely mechanical problem, which differs 
 from the problems of ordinary mechanics in the 
 smallness of the masses and the complexity 
 of the process involved." l 
 
 Take now the least complex of the three 
 instances of constructive power here mentioned, 
 that of crystallization. " The human mind," 
 says the Professor, " is as little disposed to look 
 unquestioning at these pyramidal salt crystals 
 
 1 "Fragments of Science," p. 119.
 
 248 Amma Mimdi. 
 
 as to look at the pyramids of Egypt without 
 enquiring whence they came. 
 
 " How then are those salt pyramids built up ? Guided 
 by analogy, you may, if you like, suppose that, swarming 
 among the constituent molecules of the salt, there is an 
 invisible population, controlled and coerced by some 
 invisible master, and placing the atomic blocks in their 
 position. This however is not the scientific idea, nor do 
 I think your good sense would accept it as a likely one. 
 The scientific idea is, that the molecules act upon each 
 other without the intervention of slave labour ; that they 
 attract each other and repel each other at certain definite 
 points or poles, and in certain definite directions, and 
 that the pyramidal form is the result of this play of at- 
 traction and repulsion. While then the blocks of Egypt 
 were laid down by a power external to themselves, these 
 molecular blocks of salt are self-posited, being fixed in 
 their places by the forces with which they act upon each 
 other." 1 
 
 On this very pertinent analogy it is to be 
 remarked that Professor Tyndall has specified 
 only the points on which it holds good ; and 
 here his opponents are in perfect accord with 
 himself. The only point in respect of which 
 they differ from him is that which he has 
 omitted to notice ; and in that point the ana- 
 logy entirely fails. 
 
 When, for the slave-labour employed in the 
 construction of the pyramids, we have sub- 
 
 1 "Fragments of Science," pp. 114, 115.
 
 Scientific Sophisms. 249 
 
 stituted the mutual attractions and repulsions 
 which determine the position of the minute 
 blocks employed in the construction of a crystal, 
 we have dealt with only one element of the 
 problem. That slave-labour was employed not 
 otherwise than as the consequent of antecedent 
 design. The huge blocks of granite or of 
 limestone were not deposited in their relative 
 positions except as those positions had been 
 antecedently determined "by some invisible 
 master ; " the architect who planned ; the 
 monarch who ordained and controlled. And 
 when we have said that the infinitesimally 
 minute molecular blocks in a crystal of salt 
 or of sugar are "self-posited," we have indeed 
 dispensed with the necessity of external physical 
 force necessary to simple super-position ; but 
 we have made no advance whatever towards a 
 substitute for that Intellectual Force which is 
 (at least) equally necessary in order to sym- 
 metrical super-position. We have dispensed 
 with "the intervention of slave- labour." We 
 have not dispensed with the intervention of the 
 Will by which that labour was employed, or 
 the Intelligence by which it was directed, or the 
 Power by which it was controlled. We have 
 dismissed the slaves only. The "Invisible 
 Master " still remains behind.
 
 250 Anima Mundi. 
 
 2. With regard to the pyramids of Egypt all 
 are agreed. Who planned them ? 
 
 " Was Cheops or Cephrenes architect 
 
 Of either Pyramid that bears his name ? * 
 
 By what agencies were they erected? With 
 what object were they designed ? These ques- 
 tions Professor Tyndall regards and rightly 
 regards as at once instinctive and inevitable. 
 But when these same questions are put with 
 regard to the "pyramidal salt crystals," whose 
 exquisite finish transcends all architectural 
 composition, the only answer is, that the ques- 
 tions are all at once and altogether out of 
 place. 
 
 And yet it is Professor Tyndall who tells us 
 that the very same constitution of mind which 
 compels us to question the pyramids compels 
 us also to question the crystals. Only, the 
 three questions which were inevitable in the 
 former case must, in the latter, be reduced to 
 one. " Who planned ? " and " With what ob- 
 ject?" are questions inseparable from intelli- 
 gence in the one case. But in the other, we are 
 told that these are questions with which intelli- 
 gence has nothing to do. " The scientific idea " 
 is limited exclusively to the one remaining 
 question the question least interesting and 
 
 S
 
 Scientific Sophisms. 251 
 
 least important of the three What forces, and 
 what laws operated in their construction ? 
 
 That the final form of the pyramid expresses 
 the thought of the " invisible master," whether 
 Cheops or Cephrenes, is, on all hands, admitted. 
 How then can it be denied as it is denied 
 that the crystal expresses the thought of any 
 intelligence whatever ? 
 
 3. But, in the crystal, " the molecular blocks 
 are j^-posited." And, in like manner, the 
 valves of a steam-engine are said to be " self- 
 adjusting." But the self-adjustment of the 
 valves, like the self-positing of the molecules, 
 must ultimately be referred to Mind. Except 
 as the result of the operations of a designing 
 mind, there are no valves "self-adjusting," and 
 no molecular blocks "self-posited." 
 
 Are we asked to dispense with Mind, because 
 "the agencies by which the crystals are built, 
 are incomparably superior to the agencies em- 
 ployed in the building of the pyramids " ? To 
 take this ground is to assume that the more 
 exquisite the agency employed, the less mani- 
 fest, or the less certain, are the evidences of 
 the operation of mind : an assumption directly 
 contrary to the fact. 
 
 4. The human mind, as Professor Tyndall 
 himself describes it, refuses to rest satisfied with
 
 252 Anima Mundi. 
 
 a reference to "the play of atoms and molecules 
 under the operation of laws." The obvious 
 question instinctively recurs : How come these 
 atoms and molecules to act with preconcerted 
 harmony, and " like disciplined squadrons under 
 a governing eye, arranging themselves into bat- 
 talions, gathering round distinct centres, and 
 forming themselves into solid masses," 1 move 
 with unerring precision towards a predetermined 
 goal? This is the question which, not in 
 consequence of its experience but in virtue of 
 its constitution, the human mind is compelled 
 to ask. To answer it by referring to laws self- 
 constituted, or atoms self-posited, or molecules 
 self-adjusted, is to leave untouched the very 
 thing to be accounted for. What the mind 
 demands a reason for is, the exquisite adjust- 
 ment here alleged : " and this reason is not 
 rendered by referring the inquirer to the opera- 
 tion of laws ; for, apart from and outside of 
 matter, there are no such entities in existence 
 as the laws of matter. The laws of matter are 
 simply the mode, in which matter in virtue of 
 its constitution, acts. Oxygen unites chemically 
 with hydrogen, in certain proportions, under 
 certain conditions, simply because of the quali- 
 ties or attributes wherewith these two gases are 
 1 " Fragments of Science," p. 448.
 
 Scientific Sophisms. 253 
 
 invested. It is not the law which determines 
 the combination, but the qualities which deter- 
 mine the law. These elements act as they act, 
 simply because they are what they are." 1 How 
 then came they to be what they are ? These 
 "myriad types of the same letter"; these un- 
 hewn blocks from an unknown quarry ; more 
 indestructible than adamant ; the substratum 
 of all the phenomena of the universe ; and yet, 
 amid the wreck of all things else, this infinitude 
 of discrete atoms alone is found incapable of 
 change or of decay. Who preserves to them 
 their absolute identity, notwithstanding their 
 infinite variety ? Who endowed them with 
 their inalienable properties ? W T ho impressed 
 upon them the ineffaceable characters which 
 they are found to bear ? At what mint were 
 they struck, on what anvil were they forged, 
 in what loom were they woven, so as to possess 
 "all the characteristics of manufactured articles"? 
 5. Whatever then may be said about "the 
 formation of" "a plant, or an animal," it is 
 certain that the formation of an Atom and 
 consequently of a crystal is precisely the op- 
 posite of that alleged by Professor Tyndall : it 
 is not "a purely mechanical problem." "Manu- 
 
 1 " Atomism." By Prof. Watts. Belfast : Mullan, 
 1874, p. IS-
 
 254 Anima Mundi. 
 
 factured articles" may, or may not, be pro- 
 duced by machines ; but machines are a product 
 of Mind. And where there is no Mind, there 
 are no " manufactured articles." 
 
 6. Between the curiosities of crystallography 
 and the mysteries of life there yawns a gulf 
 measurable only by the whole diameter of 
 being. It is even Haeckel himself who admits 
 that " The phenomena which living things pre- 
 sent have no parallel in the mineral world." 1 
 And yet Professor Tyndall puts the properties 
 of minerals, of mammoths, and of men, into one 
 and the same category ; tells us that however 
 strikingly they may be differentiated by specific 
 characters, yet, in every case, this difference is 
 one not of kind, but merely of degree ; and that 
 " the formation " of a man, or an oak, equally 
 with that of a snowflake, is nothing more than 
 "a purely mechanical problem, which differs 
 from the problems of ordinary mechanics " 
 not by the introduction of a new element, 
 not by the mysterious origination of vital or 
 mental force, but only by "the smallness of 
 the masses and the complexity of the process 
 involved." 
 
 Now this assertion is not only unsupported by 
 evidence : the evidence completely disproves it. 
 1 M History of Creation," vol. i. p. 681.
 
 Scientific Sophisms. 255 
 
 The points involved in it are two : First, the 
 introduction of Life. Second, the manifesta- 
 tions of Mind. As to the former of these, 
 Professor Huxley himself declares that 
 
 7. " The present state of knowledge furnishes 
 us with no link between the living and the not- 
 living." 1 Professor Haeckel admits that there 
 is nothing in chemistry that can produce life. 
 That chemistry cannot bridge the colossal 
 chasm between the living and the not-living. 
 That it cannot explain how inorganic is trans- 
 muted into organic matter. That "most na- 
 turalists, even at the present day, are inclined 
 to give up the attempt at natural explanation 
 'of the origin of life,' and to take refuge in 
 the miracle of inconceivable creation." z In the 
 words of one of them, " We have given up the 
 idea that we can make things grow." Or, to 
 take but one instance more, the final sentence 
 of Du Bois Reymond, " It is futile to attempt 
 by chemistry to bridge the chasm between the 
 living and the not-living." 
 
 8. Futile as is the attempt however, Professor 
 Huxley has shown himself equal to it. In his 
 most deliberate utterance he tells us that 
 
 1 Encycl. Brit., Art. " Biology." 
 
 u History of Creation," vol. i. p. 327.
 
 256 Anima Mundi. 
 
 M A mass of living protoplasm is simply a molecular 
 machine of great complexity, the total results of the 
 working of which, or its vital phenomena, depend, on the 
 one hand, on its construction, and on the other, upon the 
 energy supplied to it ; and to speak of ' vitality ' as any- 
 thing but the name of a series of operations, is as if one 
 should talk of the horologity of a clock" l 
 
 This oracular deliverance is worthy of the 
 most careful consideration, not less from its own 
 merits than from the celebrity of its author. 
 From it we learn that a " living " thing is " a 
 machine;" "simply" a machine. "The results 
 of the working of" this machine Milton's 
 " Paradise Lost," for example ; or Shakspere's 
 Plays ; Galileo and Kepler, Newton and Pascal, 
 Socrates and Savonarola, Stephenson and 
 Edison, Turner and Ruskin, " the total 
 results" are due to two sources. The first 
 of these is " its construction ; " the second, is 
 " the energy supplied to it." 
 
 Since, however, to our instructor not less than 
 to ourselves, the " construction " of " a mass of 
 living protoplasm " is an unfathomable secret, 
 of which, notwithstanding his high attainments, 
 even he is profoundly ignorant ; and since " the 
 energy supplied to it " remains no\v, as ever, 
 an absolutely unknown quantity ; it might 
 
 1 Prof. Huxley, Encyc. Brit., Art. " Biology," 1875.
 
 Scientific Sophisms* 257 
 
 perhaps have been more candid, as it would 
 certainly have been less misleading, if it had 
 been said at once, and without ambiguous 
 circumlocution, that " its vital phenomena 
 depend" on something of which nothing is 
 known. 
 
 It is Prof. Huxley himself who tells us that 
 the " lifeless compounds " carbonic acid, water, 
 and ammonia, cannot combine cannot, by any 
 wit of man, be combined so as to " give rise 
 to the still more complex body, protoplasm," 
 unless a principle of life presides over the opera- 
 tion. Unless under those auspices the com- 
 bination never takes place. But when we ask, 
 What is that principle of life ? What is that 
 presiding Power ? We are told that there is no 
 such thing ; that " vitality " has no more real 
 existence than " horologity ; " and that we 
 might as well speak of a " steam-engine prin- 
 ciple," a " watch-principle," or a " railroad- 
 principle," as of a "vital principle," or vital 
 force. 
 
 And yet, not even the scathing sarcasm of 
 which Prof. Huxley is a master, can avail to 
 conceal the fact that the analogies thus sug- 
 gested fail in every particular. The power of a 
 steam-engine is in no degree dependent on its 
 connection with some antecedent steam-engine.
 
 258 Anima Mundi. 
 
 The perfection of a watch is not derived by 
 contact from some other watch. But the per- 
 fection of vital movement, and the power of 
 vital force are derived by contact, are depend- 
 ent on connection with other, and pre-existing 
 living bodies. Mr. Huxley tells us of something 
 which he finds it convenient to call by the name 
 of " subtle influences." And these " subtle 
 influences," he says, " will convert the dead pro- 
 toplasm into the living protoplasm;" will "raise 
 the complex substance of dead protoplasm to 
 the higher power, as one may say, of living 
 protoplasm." * What are these " subtle in- 
 fluences ? " What else are they but vital 
 force ? 
 
 It is easy to talk of a living body as "a mole- 
 cular machine," and to attribute " vital pheno- 
 mena " to its " construction." But what of The 
 Constructor? It is easy to talk of "lifeless 
 compounds " as the " constituents " of a living 
 body. But then these lifeless compounds are 
 "constituents" that do not constitute. They 
 do not even constitute " The Physical Basis of 
 Life." Still less do they constitute the energy 
 of Life itself. " Let the matter be disguised or 
 slurred over as it may, the fact remains that we 
 are utterly unable to imitate vital affinity so far 
 1 Fortnightly Review for 1869, p. 138.
 
 Scientific Sophisms. 259 
 
 as to make a bit of material ready for its use, 
 or even to make any definite substance that 
 would have similar chemical relations." l 
 
 Let it however be supposed, that Prof. Hux- 
 ley's vaticination has been realized. Let it 
 be assumed that some day "by the advance 
 of molecular physics " the learned Professor will 
 be able to show us how it is that the properties 
 peculiar to water have resulted from the pro- 
 perties peculiar to the gases whose junction 
 constitutes water; and similarly, how the 
 characteristic properties of protoplasm have 
 sprung from properties in the water, ammonia, 
 and carbonic acid that have united to form 
 protoplasm ; even then, knowing all this, we 
 should be as far as ever from the more recon- 
 dite knowledge up to which it is expected to 
 lead. For this knowledge leaves us as ignorant 
 as before concerning that " supplied energy " of 
 Life, without which no protoplasm is ever 
 formed. " To extract the genesis of life from 
 any data that completest acquaintance with the 
 stages and processes of protoplasmic growth 
 can furnish, is a truly hopeless problem. Given 
 the plan of a house, with samples of its brick 
 and mortar, to find the name and nationality 
 of the householder, would be child's play in 
 1 Dr. Elam, "Automatism and Evolution."
 
 260 Anima Mundi. 
 
 comparison. Life, as we have seen, 1 is not the 
 offspring of protoplasm, but something which 
 has been superinduced upon, and may be separ- 
 ated from the protoplasm that serves as its 
 material basis. It is therefore distinct from the 
 matter which it animates, and, being thus im- 
 material, cannot possibly become better known 
 by any analysis of matter." 8 
 
 9. " In every living thing there are physico- 
 chemical actions, which also occur out of the 
 body, and vital actions. These last, however, 
 are peculiar to living beings, and cannot be 
 imitated. In galvanic batteries, and in other 
 arrangements made by man, we may have phy- 
 sico-chemical actions, but never anything at all 
 like vital actions? The physicist "seems to 
 think that pabulum goes into a living thing and 
 becomes changed chemically, just as it may be 
 changed in his laboratory, and the results of 
 this change are work, and certain compounds 
 which are got rid of. In all this, the living 
 matter which is absolutely essential in every 
 one of these changes without which not one of 
 them could occur, or even be conceived as occur- 
 ring in thought, is persistently ignored." " But 
 although the new schools hold it absurd to 
 
 1 Vide ante, pp. 119, 120. 
 
 1 Thornton, " Old Fashioned Ethics," pp. 168 et seq.
 
 Scientific Sophisms. 261 
 
 suppose that any peculiar power acting from 
 within or from without can influence the 
 changes in matter, or direct its forces, they 
 see no impropriety in attributing to matter 
 itself, and to force, guiding, and directing, 
 and forming agencies." They transfer to 
 the non-living those active, controlling, and 
 directing powers which have hitherto been re- 
 garded as the attributes of life alone. Accord- 
 ing to them, it is not " will," or " mind," or 
 even "vital force " it is merely " the inorganic 
 molecule " that arranges, governs, guides, con- 
 trols. 
 
 Thus, for example, Prof. Huxley has affirmed 
 that a "particle of jelly "guides forces. To his 
 mind, he tells us, it is a fact of the profoundest 
 significance that "this particle of jelly is capable 
 of guiding physical forces in srrch a manner 
 as to give rise to those exquisite and almost 
 mathematically arranged structures, etc." l It 
 is not easy to see, however, why the idea of 
 physical forces being guided by a particle of 
 jelly should be accepted as a fact of "profound 
 significance," while the idea of "vitality " acting 
 upon the particles of this jelly, and guiding 
 them and their forces, should be denounced as 
 a fiction, absurd, ridiculous, frivolous, fanciful 
 1 Introduction to the Classification of Animals.
 
 262 Anima Mundi. 
 
 Besides : that physical forces guide matter, is a 
 doctrine neither new nor strange ; but here we 
 have the doctrine that matter guides physical 
 forces a doctrine not less strange than new. 
 " But is it not more probable that neither matter 
 nor force is capable of guiding or directing force 
 or matter ? Matter may be said to rule and 
 guide itself, but. it can hardly be ruled and 
 guided by itsel It might, however, be ruled 
 and guided by something else. 
 
 "Concerning the dictum about jelly guiding 
 physical forces, I shall, therefore, venture to 
 remark I. That living matter is not jelly ; 
 7. That neither jelly nor matter is capable of 
 guiding or directing forces of any kind ; and 3. . 
 That the capacity of jelly to guide forces, which 
 Prof. Huxley says is a fact of the profoundest 
 significance to him, is not a fact at all, but 
 merely an assertion." * 
 
 10. " If a machine that moved itself could, of 
 itself, divide into new machines, and each take 
 up particles of brass and iron and steel, or 
 other substances entering into its construction, 
 and deposit these in the proper places, so that 
 the several wheels and other elementary parts 
 of the mechanism should grow evenly and 
 regularly, and continue to work while all these 
 1 Dr. Scale's " Protoplasm," pp. 74, 75, 77, 81.
 
 Scientific Sophisms. 263 
 
 changes were proceeding, such a machine, it 
 is true, would in some particulars be like a 
 living organism." But how stands the fact ? 
 " If any apparatus we could contrive developed 
 all possible modes of force motion, heat, light, 
 electricity, magnetism, chemical action, and any 
 number of others yet to be discovered that 
 apparatus would still present no approach what- 
 ever to any organism known. Of course such 
 a thing might be called an organism, just as a 
 watch, or a steam-engine, or water, or anything 
 else, may be called a creature, a worm or any 
 other living thing called a machine. But every 
 living machine seems to grow of itself, builds 
 itself up, and multiplies, while every non-living 
 machine that has yet been discovered is made. 
 It neither grows, nor can it produce machines 
 like itself" " Will mechanics account for the 
 movements of an amoeba ? Where is the being 
 that grows by mechanics, and where is the 
 mechanical apparatus that can be said to grow ? 
 Has mechanics taught us the difference between 
 a living seed and the same seed when it has 
 ceased to live?" * 
 
 1 1. To revert, for a moment, from " vitality " 
 to " horologity." When Mr. Lewes a writer 
 distinguished for his opposition to what he 
 ' Dr. Beale, " Protoplasm," pp. 47, 486.
 
 264 Anima Mundi. 
 
 calls Theological explanations in Science tells 
 us that we may just as well speak of a watch 
 as the abode of a "watch- force," as speak 
 of the organization of an animal as the abode 
 of a " vital Force," l he is guilty of an over- 
 sight common to all those who share his views. 
 It is quite true that the Forces by which a 
 watch moves are natural Forces. But it is the 
 relation of interdependence in which these 
 Forces are placed to each other, or, in other 
 words, the adjustment of them to a particu- 
 lar Purpose, which constitutes the " watch- 
 force ; " and the seat of this Force which is 
 in fact no one Force but a combination of 
 many Forces is in the Intelligence which 
 conceived that combination, and in tJie Will 
 which gave it effect. 
 
 " The mechanisms devised by Man are in this respect 
 only an image of the more perfect mechanism of Nature, 
 in which the same principle of Adjustment is always the 
 highest result which Science can ascertain or recognise. 
 There is this difference, indeed, that in regard to our 
 works we see that our knowledge of natural laws is very 
 imperfect, and our control over them is very feeble ; 
 whereas in the machinery of Nature there is evidence of 
 complete knowledge and of absolute control. The uni- 
 versal rule is, that everything is brought about by way of 
 Natural Consequence. But another rule is, that all natural 
 
 1 Lewes's " Philosophy of Aristotle," p. 37.
 
 Scientific Sophisms. 265 
 
 consequences meet and fit into each other in endless 
 circles of Harmony and of Purpose. And this can only 
 be explained by the fact that what we call Natural Con- 
 sequence is always the conjoint effect of an infinite num- 
 ber of elementary Forces, whose action and reaction are 
 under direction of the Will which we see obeyed, and of 
 the Purposes which we see actually attained." 1 
 
 12. The relation which an organic structure 
 bears to its purpose in Nature is not less capable 
 of certain recognition than the same relation 
 between a machine and its purpose in human 
 art " It is absurd to maintain, for example, 
 that the purpose of the cellular arrangement of 
 material in combining lightness with strength, 
 is a purpose legitimately cognisable by Science 
 in the Menai Bridge, but is not as legitimately 
 cognisable when it is seen in Nature, actually 
 serving the same use. The little Barnacles 
 which crust the rocks at low tide, and which 
 to live there at all must be able to resist the 
 surf, have the building of their shells con- 
 structed strictly with reference to this necessity. 
 It is a structure all hollowed and chambered on 
 the plan which engineers have so lately dis- 
 covered as an arrangement of material by which 
 the power of resisting strain or pressure is mul- 
 tiplied in an extraordinary degree. That shell 
 
 1 The Duke of Argyll's "Reign of Law" (Sixth 
 Edition,), pp. 124 et seg.
 
 266 Anima Mundi. 
 
 is as pure a bit of mechanics as the bridge ; 
 both being structures in which the same ar- 
 rangement is adapted to the same end." l 
 
 M Small, but a work divine ; 
 Frail, but of force to withstand, 
 Year upon year, the shock 
 Of cataract seas that snap 
 The three-decker's oaken spine." ' 
 
 This is but one instance out of a number that 
 no man can count. 
 
 The Electric Ray, or Torpedo, has been pro- 
 vided with a Battery which, while it closely 
 resembles, yet in the beauty and compactness 
 of its structure, it greatly exceeds the Batteries 
 by which Man has now learned to make the 
 laws of Electricity subservient to his will. In 
 this Battery there are no less than 940 hexa- 
 gonal columns, like those of a bees' comb, and 
 each of these is subdivided by a series of 
 horizontal plates, which appear to be analogous 
 to the plates of the Voltaic Pile. The whole is 
 supplied with an enormous amount of nervous 
 matter, four great branches of which are as large 
 as the animal's spinal cord, and these spread 
 out in a multitude of thread-like filaments round 
 the prismatic columns, and finally pass into all 
 
 1 " The Reign of Law," pp. 99, 100. 
 " Maud."
 
 Scientific Sophisms. 267 
 
 the cells. l "A complete knowledge of all the 
 mysteries which have been gradually unfolded 
 from the days of Galvani to those of Faraday, 
 and of many others which ure still inscrutable to 
 us, is exhibited in this structure" 
 
 Well may Mr. Darwin say, " It is impossible 
 to conceive by what steps these wondrous 
 organs have been produced." 3 "We see the 
 Purpose that a special apparatus should be 
 prepared, and we see that it is effected by 
 the production of the machine required : but 
 we have not the remotest notion of the means 
 employed. Yet we can see so much as this, 
 that here again, other laws, belonging altogether 
 to another department of Nature laws of 
 organic growth are made subservient to a very 
 definite and very peculiar Purpose." The laws 
 appealed to in the accomplishment of this pur- 
 pose are at once numerous and highly compli- 
 cated. They are so because the conditions to 
 be satisfied refer not merely to the generation 
 of Electric force in the animal to which it is 
 given, but to its effect on Ihe nervous system of 
 the animals against which it is to be employed, 
 and also to the conducting medium in which 
 
 1 Prof. Owen's "Lectures on Comparative Anatomy," 
 vol. ii. (Fishes). 
 8 " Origin of Species." First Edition, p. 192.
 
 268 Anima Mundi. 
 
 both are moving. But the fact that these con- 
 ditions exist, and must be satisfied, is not the 
 ultimate fact, it is not even the main fat which 
 Science apprehends in such phenomena as these. 
 That which is most observable and most certain, 
 is the manner in which these conditions are 
 met. But this, in other words, is simply the 
 subordination of many laws to a difficult and 
 curious Purpose ; a Purpose none the less 
 obvious, and a subordination not the less re- 
 markable, because effected through the instru- 
 mentality of mechanical contrivance. 
 
 " The new-born Kangaroo," says Professor Owen, " is 
 an inch in length, naked, blind, with very rudimental limbs 
 and tail : in one which I examined the morning after the 
 birth, I could discern no act of sucking : it hung, like a 
 germ, from the end of the long nipple, and seemed unable 
 to draw sustenance therefrom by its own efforts. The 
 mother accordingly is provided with a peculiar adapta- 
 tion of a muscle (cremaster) to the mammary gland, by 
 which she can inject the milk from the nipple into the 
 mouth of the pendulous embryo. Were the larynx of the 
 little creature like that of the parent, the milk might, 
 probably would, enter the windpipe and cause suffocation : 
 but the fcetal larynx is cone-shaped, with the opening at 
 the apex, which projects, as in the whale-tribe, into the 
 back aperture of the nostrils, where it is closely embraced 
 by the muscles of the ' soft palate. The air-passage is 
 thus completely separated from the fauces, and the in- 
 jected milk passes in a divided stream, on either side the 
 base of the larynx, into the oesophagus. These correlated
 
 Scientific Sophisms. 269 
 
 modifications of maternal and foetal structures, designed 
 with especial reference to the peculiar conditions of both 
 mother and offspring, afford, as it seems to me, irrefra- 
 gable evidence of Creative foresight" l 
 
 "The parts of this apparatus cannot have produced 
 one another ; one part is in the mother, another part in 
 the young one ; without their harmony they could not be 
 effective ; but nothing except design can operate to make 
 them harmonious. They are intended to work together ; 
 and we cannot resist the conviction of this intention 
 when the facts first come before us." 2 
 
 13. "A prospect-glass or a forceps is an 
 instrument ; they have each a final cause ; that 
 is, they were each made and adjusted for a 
 certain use. The use of the prospect-glass is to 
 assist the eye ; the use of the forceps is to assist 
 the hand. The prospect-glass was made the 
 better to- see ; the forceps, the better to grasp. 
 The use did not make these instruments ; they 
 were each .made for the ttse which use was 
 foreseen and premeditated in the mind of the 
 maker of them. We say of each of them 
 without a shadow of hesitation : IF THIS HAD 
 NOT FIRST BEEN A THOUGHT, IT COULD NEVER 
 HAVE BEEN A THING. Now, is the Eye or the 
 Hand an instrument adjusted to a certain use, 
 and thus revealing an antecedent purpose in 
 
 1 Philosophical Transactions, 1834, Reade Lecture, p. 
 29. 
 * Phil. Inductive Sciences, vol. L p. 625.
 
 270 Anima Mundi. 
 
 the Creative Mind, or is it not? Can we ac- 
 count for either except by saying that it was 
 thought out before it was wrought out ; that it 
 was a concept in mind ere it could possibly 
 appear as a configuration in matter ; that before 
 it became a fact in nature it must needs have 
 been a thought in God?"* 
 
 14. Can we say that although the prospect- 
 glass is the product of mind, yet no mind pre- 
 sided over the structure of the eye ? According 
 to Mr. Darwin, we can and ought. And yet 
 Mr. Darwin begins by admitting it to be 
 apparently "in the highest degree absurd to 
 suppose that the eye, with all its INIMITABLE 
 contrivances for adjusting the focus to different 
 distances, for admitting different amounts of 
 light, and for the correction of spherical and 
 chromatic aberration, could have been formed 
 by natural selection." He then proceeds to 
 indicate some " probable " stages in the process 
 by which, as he believes, the eye was formed 
 a process of natural selection, and of that 
 alone. His first postulate is, a nerve specially 
 endowed with sensibility to light. The optic 
 nerve thus not formed, but fancied merely, 
 surrounded by pigment cells, and covered by 
 translucent skin, will, in millions of ages, select 
 1 "The Three Barriers," pp. 61 et seq.
 
 Scientific Sophisms. 271 
 
 itself into an eye. Let it be granted : " in the 
 highest degree absurd " though it be. But the 
 primary postulate how does Mr. Darwin get 
 that ? " How a nerve comes to be sensitive to 
 light," he says, " hardly concerns us more than 
 how life itself originated." Perhaps not : but 
 both questions are studiously evaded when we 
 are left to infer that the nerve made itself 
 and that life caused itself to live ; or, in 
 other words, that both are examples of what 
 Mr. Darwin strangely calls "variation causing 
 alterations? 
 
 Take now the several steps of the process as 
 pursued by Natural Selection according to Mr. 
 Darwin ; and let but the power competent to 
 do the things which he assumes are done, be 
 credited with sense enough to be aware of its 
 competence, and it may then be regarded as not 
 unlikely to have done some of them on purpose. 
 Whereupon the genesis of the eye ceases to be 
 a mystery. " All the appearances of contrivance 
 that have resulted from the operation find their 
 obvious and complete explanation in the as- 
 sumption of a contriver, and all such hazy films 
 as that of variability producing variation cease 
 to be capable of serving as excuses for wilful 
 blindness. And why should not the power in 
 question be so credited ? Here is Mr. Darwin's
 
 272 Anima Mundi. 
 
 solitary reason why. He doubts whether the 
 inference implied may not be 'presumptuous.' 
 He apprehends that we have no 'right to 
 assume that the Creator works by intellectual 
 powers like those of a man.' Truly, of all 
 suggested modes of marking respect for creative 
 power, that of assuming it to have worked un- 
 intelligently is the most original." 1 
 
 " From what I know, through my own speci- 
 ality, both geometry and experiment, of the 
 structure of lenses and the human eye, I do not 
 believe that any amount of evolution, extending 
 through any amount of time consistent with 
 the requirements of our astronomical knowledge, 
 could have issued in the production of that 
 most beautiful and complicated instrument, the 
 human eye. There are too many curved sur- 
 faces, too many distances, too many densities 
 of the media, each essential to the other, too 
 great a facility of ruin by slight disarrangement, 
 to admit of anything short of the intervention 
 of an intelligent Will at some stage of the 
 evolutionary process. The most perfect, and at 
 the same time the most difficult optical con- 
 trivance known is the powerful achromatic 
 object glass of a microscope; its structure is 
 the long-unhoped-for result of the ingenuity of 
 
 1 Thornton : " Old- Fashioned Ethics," pp. 238, 239.
 
 Scientific Sophisms. 273 
 
 many powerful minds ; yet in complexity and in 
 perfection it falls infinitely below the structure 
 of the eye. Disarrange any one of the curva- 
 tures of the many surfaces, or distances, or 
 densities of the latter ; or worse, disarrange its 
 incomprehensible self-adaptive power, the like 
 of which is possessed by the handiwork of 
 nothing human, and all the opticians in the 
 world could not tell you what is the correlative 
 alteration necessary to repair it, and still less to 
 improve it, as natural selection is presumed to 
 imply.' 
 
 15. The case is too strong to be explained 
 away. Nature is full of plan, and yet she plans 
 not : she is only plastic to a plan. That plan 
 carries with it its own unanswerable attestation 
 to all healthy understandings. It has its warp 
 indeed, as well as its woof. The exquisite 
 variety of creative adjustments reposes on a 
 basis of fundamental order : exhaustless speci- 
 alities of adaptation are engrafted on a per.vasive 
 unity of type. Morphology, rightly viewed, is 
 not the negation, but one grand phase of the 
 revelation of plan. Teleology is the other. " It 
 has been by following the lamp of Final Cause, 
 and obeying her beckoning hand, that the 
 
 1 Professor Pritchard's .Address at the Brighton Con- 
 gress (1874).
 
 274 Anima Mundi. 
 
 masters of anatomical and physiological science, 
 from Galen to Cuvier, and from Harvey to 
 Owen, have been guided to their splendid dis- 
 coveries." But the irrepressible question, For 
 what ? is naturally followed by the further ques- 
 tion, From Whom? The measure of the confi- 
 dence with which Science assumes a use is the 
 measure of the confidence with which Religion 
 affirms an Author. "He that planted the ear, 
 shall He not hear ? Or He that made the eye, 
 shall He not see ? " This argument has been 
 esteemed unanswerable, not only by the most 
 masculine reasoners among Christian divines, 
 Barrow and Paley, Chalmers and Whewell : " it 
 has carried conviction, from the time of Socrates 
 to that of Cuvier, to the foremost minds of the 
 human race, and found almost its sole antago- 
 nists among spinners of cobwebs and dreamers 
 of dreams. . . . The prints of Divine fore- 
 thought, and the convictions they engender, are 
 scattered over the face of universal nature, and 
 ploughed into the very subsoil of the human 
 mind." 
 
 16. To conclude. Modern Materialism then, 
 as expounded by its ablest advocates, whether 
 under the guise of ^Positive Agnosticism, or that 
 of Scientific Atheism, has no key to unlock the
 
 Scientific Sophisms. 275 
 
 mysteries of Being. Propounded as a theory of 
 the Universe, it has no commencement and no 
 continuity. There are " First Beginnings " of 
 which it has no knowledge. There are Barriers 
 which it cannot pass, and chasms which it can- 
 not cross, and deeps which it cannot fathom, 
 and mysteries which it cannot even pretend to 
 explain. That extension which we call space ; 
 that duration which we call time ; that sub- 
 stance which we call matter ; whence came 
 they? "There shall be no Alps"? They 
 shall be explained away? Matter shall be 
 defined in terms of Mind ? Space and Time 
 shall be declared non-entities non-existent 
 outside the faculties of the Being percipient ? l 
 
 But then whence came this Being ? and 
 whence came his faculty " percipient " ? Matter, 
 too, however defined, is possessed of certain 
 properties, and constituted in definite propor- 
 tions, and specified in distinct categories car- 
 bon, gold, iodine, etc., whence came all these ? 
 Then too, besides material properties, there are 
 material forces. Heat is a mode of motion ; 
 and motion is a result of force; and force 
 operates according to law. But who ordained 
 the Law ? and who upholds it ? Who estab- 
 lished " the sequence of events as observed by 
 1 See Appendix, Note G.
 
 276 Anima Mundi. 
 
 us " ? Who originated Motion ? Where is the 
 primal Force ? 
 
 " We will assume that science has done its 
 utmost ; and that every chemical or animal 
 force is demonstrably resolvable into heat or 
 motion, reciprocally changing into each other. 
 I would myself like better, in order of thought, 
 to consider motion as a mode of heat than heat 
 as a mode of motion : still, granting that we 
 have got thus far, we have yet to ask, What is 
 heat ? or what motion ? What is this ' primo 
 mobile,' this transitional power, in which all 
 things live,, and move, and have their being ? 
 It is by definition something different from 
 matter, and we may call it as we choose ' firs* 
 cause,' or ' first light, or ' first heat ' , but w<" 
 can show no scientific proof of its not bein 
 personal, and coinciding with the ordinary con- 
 ception of a supporting spirit in all things." 1 
 
 M The Lord of all, Himself through all diffused, 
 Sustains, and is the life of all that lives. 
 Nature is but a name for an effect, 
 Whose cause is God." 
 
 With Him is the breath of Life. With Him is 
 the secret of Power. This is what men of 
 science " are finding more and more, below their 
 
 1 "The Queen of the Air:" by John Ruskin, LL.D. 
 (1869), p. 74.
 
 Scientific Sophisms. ' 277 
 
 facts, below all phenomena which the scalpel 
 and the microscope can show; a something 
 nameless, invisible, imponderable, yet seemingly 
 omnipresent and omnipotent, retreating before 
 them deeper and deeper, the deeper they 
 delve ; that which the old schoolmen called 
 ' forma formativa,' the mystery of that unknown 
 and truly miraculous element in nature which 
 is always escaping them, though they cannot 
 escape it ; that of which it was written of old, 
 'Whither shall I go from Thy presence, or 
 whither shall I flee from Thy Spirit ? '" * 
 
 17. Proof? See it in the great gulf between 
 the organic and the inorganic, the living and 
 the not-living, a grain of sand and a grain of 
 corn. See it in the inscrutable phenomena of 
 growth. See it in the immutable order which 
 dominates the countless varieties of the vegeta- 
 ble world. Amid all those varieties, with their 
 corresponding powers, it does not matter in the 
 least by what concurrences of circumstance or 
 necessity they may gradually have been de- 
 veloped : the concurrence of circumstance is 
 itself the supreme and inexplicable fact. " We 
 always come at last to a formative cause, which 
 directs the circumstance and mode of meeting 
 1 Canon Kingsley. Lecture at Sion College.
 
 278 Anima Mundi. 
 
 it If you ask an ordinary botanist the reason 
 of the lorm of a leaf, he will tell you it is a 
 ' developed tubercle,' and that its ultimate form 
 'is owing to the directions of its vascular 
 threads.' But what directs its vascular threads? 
 ' They are seeking for something they want,' 
 he will probably answer. What made them 
 want that ? What made them seek for it thus ? 
 Seek for it, in five fibres or in three ? Seek for 
 it, in serration, or in sweeping curves ? Seek 
 for it in servile tendrils, or impetuous spray ? 
 Seek for it in woollen wrinkles rough with 
 stings, or in glossy surfaces, green with pure 
 strength, and winterless delight ? " It is Mr. 
 Ruskin who asks these questions : and it is 
 Mr. Ruskin who adds, " There is no answer." l 
 
 Then too this leaf, whatever its form, is alive. 
 It points, not more to a Formative Cause than 
 to a Living Power. Polarity of atoms, mole- 
 cular movements, chemical affinities, may be 
 adduced to explain, even while in fact they con- 
 ceal, the phenomena of structure and configura- 
 tion in the inorganic world. But when the 
 chemical affinities are brought under the in- 
 fluence of the air, and of solar heat, the forma- 
 tive force enters an entirely different phase. 
 " It does not now merely crystallize indefinite 
 1 " Queen of the Air," p. 104.
 
 Scientific Sophisms. 279 
 
 masses, but it gives to limited portions of matter 
 the power of gathering, selectively, other ele- 
 ments proper to them, and binding these 
 elements into their own peculiar and adopted 
 form." But this " power of gathering select- 
 ively," the power that catches out of chaos 
 charcoal, water, lime, or what not, and fastens 
 them down into a given form, the power that is 
 continually creating its own shells of definite 
 shape out of the wreck round it, What is it ? 
 and Whence ? " There is no answer." 
 
 Next comes the gap which separates vegeta- 
 ble from animal life. " These are necessarily 
 the converse of each other, the one deoxidizes 
 and accumulates, the other oxidizes and ex- 
 pends. Only in reproduction or decay does the 
 plant simulate the action of the animal, and the 
 animal never, in its simplest forms, assumes the 
 tunctions of the plant. Those obscure cases in 
 the humbler spheres of animal and vegetable life 
 which have been supposed to show a union of 
 the two kingdoms, disappear on investigation." 
 This is the testimony of Principal Dawson, 
 who adds, " This gap can, I believe, be filled up 
 only by an appeal to our ignorance." l 
 
 1 " Story of the Earth and Man." By J. W. Dawson, 
 LL.D., F.R.S , F.G.S., etc. Hodder and Stoughton, 1873, 
 p. 326. [See p. 298, to which this Reference belongs.]
 
 280 Anima Mundi. 
 
 Of the chasms which separate species, the 
 same author writes, " It was this gap, and this 
 only, which Darwin undertook to fill up by his 
 great work on the origin of species, but not- 
 withstanding the immense amount of material 
 thus expended, it yawns as wide as ever, since 
 it must be admitted that no case has been 
 ascertained in which an individual of one species 
 has transgressed the limits between it and other 
 species." l 
 
 Transcending all the rest is the gulf that 
 separates the brute from man. It is Professor 
 Huxley himself who tells us that the "diver- 
 gence of the Human from the Simian Stirps " is 
 "immeasurable and practically infinite." Who 
 made it so ? Huxley believes, with Cuvier, 
 that " the possession of articulate speech is the 
 grand distinctive character of man." But 
 whence did he derive an endowment so unique 
 and so invaluable ? " Men have words, which 
 are projected ideas ; brutes have only sounds, 
 which are projected sensations. Brutes voci- 
 ferate : men speak. The physical organiza- 
 tion is wedded to the mental capacity a mouth, 
 and wisdom. Neither, apart, would effloresce 
 into Language : both must conspire and com- 
 bine. So the one mind which has thoughts to 
 1 See Appendix, Note H.
 
 Scientific Sophisms. 281 
 
 be interpreted is furnished in the human tongue 
 with an all-accomplished interpreter." But 
 whence came this " one mind which has 
 thoughts to be interpreted " ? 
 
 What is the origin of Mind ? What is the 
 genesis of Thought ? 
 
 1 8. For Thought is no mere "function of the 
 brain " ; nor is it " medullary matter that 
 thinks." " The function of the lung is not un- 
 intelligible ; it can be followed throughout, and 
 understood throughout. Though the peculiar- 
 ity of vitality mingles there, it can still, in a 
 certain aspect, be called a physical function, and 
 its result is of an identical nature. If, and 
 so far as, the function is physical, the result is 
 physical. So with the stomach : function and 
 result are there in the same category of being. 
 The livef is so far a physical organ that it can 
 be seen, it can be touched, it can be handled ; 
 but is it otherwise with the bile, which is the 
 result of its function ? Can it too, not be seen, 
 and touched, and handled ? Is it not essentially 
 of the same nature ? Is it not physical, in the 
 same way and to the same extent as the liver 
 is physical ? But look now to the brain, and 
 the so-called product of its function. Do we 
 any longer find the same identity of the terms ? 
 No ; the terms there are veritable extremes
 
 282 Anima Mundi. 
 
 extremes wider than the poles apart extremes 
 sundered by the whole diameter of being. The 
 result here, then, is not like the result of any 
 other function. It is wholly unique; something 
 quite new, fresh, and original ; something un- 
 precedented, something unparalleled, absolutely 
 single and singular, absolutely sui generis. The 
 result here in fact, is the very antithesis, the 
 very counterpart of the organ which is sup- 
 posed to function it. 
 
 " An organ, after all, consists of parts ; but 
 thought has no parts, thought is one. Matter 
 has one set of qualities ; Mind, another ; and 
 these sets are wholly incommensurable, wholly 
 incommunicable. A feeling is not square, a 
 thought is not oval. . . . No function of 
 the body, and no function of any machine out 
 of the body, presents any parallel to the nature 
 of thought." x 
 
 Before this problem of the genesis of 
 Thought, Materialism is dumb. And yet this 
 same Thought (" without precedent," " without 
 parallel,") has changed the face of the world. 
 " From the moment when the first skin was used 
 as a covering, when the first rude spear was 
 formed to assist in the chase, the first seed sown 
 
 1 Dr. Stirling's " Materialism in relation to the Study 
 of Medicine," p. 8. 
 
 U
 
 Scientific Sophisms. 283 
 
 or root planted, a grand revolution was effected 
 in nature, a revolution which in all the previous 
 ages of the world's history had had no parallel, for 
 a being had arisen who was no longer necessarily 
 subject to change with the changing universe, 
 a being who was in some degree superior to 
 nature, inasmuch as he knew how to control and 
 regulate her action, and could keep himself in 
 harmony with her, not by a change in body, 
 but by an advance in mind. 
 
 "Here then we see the true grandeur and 
 dignity of man. On this view of his special 
 attributes, we may admit that even those who 
 claim for him a position and an order, a class, or 
 a sub-kingdom by himself, have some reason on 
 their side. He is, indeed, a being apart, since 
 he is not influenced by the great laws which ir- 
 resistibly modify all other organic beings. . . . 
 Man has not only escaped ' natural selection ' 
 himself, but he is actually able to take away 
 some of that power from nature which, before 
 his appearance, she universally exercised." * 
 
 Conclusive as is this testimony in itself, it is 
 doubly so on account of the quarter from which 
 it comes. From a very different quarter comes 
 
 1 Mr. Wallace, in the Anthropological Review, May, 
 1864.
 
 284 Anima Mundi. 
 
 the characteristic, but concurrent testimony of 
 Thomas Carlyle : 
 
 " Capabilities there were in me " (says Teufelsdrockh) 
 " to give battle, in some small degree, against the great 
 Empire of Darkness : does not the very Ditcher and Delver, 
 with his spade, extinguish many a thistle and puddle ; and 
 so leave a little Order, where he found the opposite? Nay, 
 your very Daymoth has capabilities in this kind ; and 
 ever organizes something (into its own Body, if no other- 
 wise), which was before Inorganic ; and of mute dead air 
 makes living music, though only of the faintest, by hum- 
 ming. 
 
 "How much more, one whose capabilities are spiritual; 
 who has learned, or begun learning, the grand thauma- 
 turgic art of TTttughtJ Thaurnaturgic I name it ; for 
 hitherto all Miracles have been wrought thereby, and 
 henceforth innumerable will be wrought ; whereof we, 
 even in these days, witness some. Of the Poets' and 
 Prophets' inspired Message, and how it makes and un- 
 makes whole worlds, I shall forbear mention : but cannot 
 the dullest hear Steam-engines clanking around him?" J 
 
 What then, is the origin, and who is the 
 originator of " that subtle force which we term 
 Mind " ? 
 
 19. Man, as defined by Professor Huxley, 2 is "a 
 conscious automaton," "endowed with free-will"; 
 and in his Essay on "The Physical Basis of 
 Life " he confesses that " our volition counts for 
 
 1 " Sartor Resartus," chap. iv. 
 
 3 Fortnightly Review, November, 1874, p, 577.
 
 Scientific Sophisms. 285 
 
 something as a condition of the course of events "/ 
 and that this " can be verified experimentally as 
 often as we like to try." l This machine which 
 is not mechanical ; this automaton with a will 
 of its own ; this creature whose actions are at 
 once automatic and autonomic ; this " automa- 
 ton endowed with free-will," is a novel inven- 
 tion quite worthy of Mr. Huxley's ingenuity. 
 But whence did it derive the faculties with 
 which he says it is endowed ? 
 
 It is " conscious," he tells us. And its 
 " volition counts for something." What then is 
 Volition ? and whence ? And what is Con- 
 sciousness ? 
 
 " Can you satisfy the human understanding 
 in its- demand for logical continuity between 
 molecular processes and the phenomena of 
 consciousness ? " It is Professor Tyndall who 
 asks this question, and his answer to it is 
 this : 
 
 "This is a rock on which materialism must 
 inevitably split whenever it pretends to be a 
 complete philosophy of life." 2 
 
 And with the candid and elegant Lucretian, 
 Professor Huxley notwithstanding his material- 
 istic declaration of faith in molecular machinery 
 
 1 " Lay Sermons," p. 145. 
 * Belfast Address.
 
 286 Anima Mundi. 
 
 agrees. " What consciousness is," he says, " we 
 know not ; and how it is that anything so 
 remarkable as a state of consciousness comes 
 about as the result of irritating nervous tissue, 
 is just as unaccountable as the appearance of 
 the Djin when Aladdin rubbed his lamp in the 
 story." l 
 
 " Afferent nerves lie here, and carry to ; 
 efferent nerves lie there, and carry from ; but in 
 none of them neither in fibre of nerve nor 
 in fibre of brain, will you find any hint of 
 consciousness. How any material impressions 
 should awake thought ; but, still more, how, in 
 independence of all impressions, thought should 
 be all the while there, alive and active, A WORLD 
 BY ITSELF that is the mystery. And that no 
 scalpel, no microscope, will ever explain. 
 Mechanical balances the most delicate, chemical 
 tests the most sensitive, are all powerless there. 
 And why ? Simply because consciousness and 
 they are incommensurable, of another nature, of 
 another world from the first, sundered from 
 each other, as I have said, by the whole 
 diameter of being." 3 
 
 " It is quite true that the tympanum of the 
 ear vibrates under sound, and that the surface of 
 
 1 Huxley's " Physiology," p. 193. 
 
 * Stirling's " Materialism " ut sup., p. 7.
 
 Scientific Sophisms. 287 
 
 the water in a ditch vibrates too ; but the ditch 
 hears nothing for all that ; and my hearing is 
 still to me as blessed a mystery as ever, and the 
 interval between the ditch and me, quite as 
 great If the trembling sound in my ears was 
 once of the marriage-bell which began my 
 happiness, and is now of the passing-bell which 
 ends it, the difference between those two sounds 
 to me cannot be counted by the number of' 
 concussions. There have been some curious 
 speculations lately as to the conveyance of 
 mental consciousness by ' brain-waves.' What 
 does it matter how it is conveyed ? The 
 consciousness itself is not a wave. It may be 
 accompanied here or there by any quantity of 
 quivers and shakes, up or down, of anything 
 you can find in the universe that is shakeable 
 what is that to me ? My friend is dead, and my 
 according to modern views vibratory sorrow 
 is not one whit less, or less mysterious, to me, 
 than my old quiet one." l 
 
 Whence came then this emergence of Per- 
 sonal Consciousness among the world of living 
 creatures ? From what source have we derived 
 that sense of individual personality which con- 
 stitutes "an altogether new and original fact, 
 one which cannot be conceived as developed or 
 1 Ruskin : ' Athena," p. 70.
 
 288 Anima Mundi. 
 
 developable out o. any pre-existing phenomena 
 or conditions " ? That consciousness of an I 
 Myseh, 01 Personality, which asserts an anti- 
 thesis between the Man, and all that the Man 
 makes his own whence came it, if not irom that 
 Eternal Consciousness, that Divine Personality 
 Who, when He made us, made us in His Own 
 image ? 
 
 20. Science, in the modern doctrine of the 
 Conservation of Energy, and the Convertibility of 
 Forces, insists, with increasing emphasis, that all 
 kinds of Force are but forms or manifestations 
 01 some one Central Force issuing from some one 
 Fountain-head of Power, Sir John Herschel 
 has not hesitated to say, that " it is but reason- 
 able to regard the Force of Gravitation as the 
 direct or indirect result of a Consciousness or a 
 Will existing somewhere." l But if for the 
 phenomena of the material world you must 
 have an external Will, how much more for those 
 which characterize the World of Mind ! " A 
 will that hangs by the Central Will " is in- 
 telligible : but, refuse to recognise that Central 
 Will, and then how can you account for that 
 " lord paramount," the Human Will ? 
 
 " Two things," said Immanuel Kant, " are 
 awful to me : the starry firmament, and the 
 
 1 "Outlines of Astronomy." Fifth Edition, p. 291.
 
 Scientific Sophisms. 289 
 
 sense of Responsibility in Man." And again : 
 " Duty ! wondrous thought, that workest neither 
 by fond insinuation, flattery, nor by any 
 threat, but merely by holding up thy naked 
 'law in the soul,' and so extorting for thyself 
 always reverence, if not always obedience; 
 before whom all appetites are dumb, however 
 secretly they rebel ; WHENCE THY ORIGINAL ? " 
 
 Enough. Nature is a hierarchy, and the 
 head is Man. " Mind, language, civilization, 
 worship the will to determine, the tongue to 
 speak, the hand to do these, in their boundless 
 purport, are all awanting till the Creator plants 
 upon the scene the solitary owner of the Perfect 
 Brain. Named in one word, all these are 
 wisdom; and Man, ' thinker of God's thoughts 
 after Him/ is, among uncounted myriads of 
 lower existences, on this earth the Only 
 Wise." l 
 
 " This universe is not an accidental cavity, in 
 which an accidental dust has been accidentally 
 swept into heaps for the accidental evolution 
 of the majestic spectacle of organic and in- 
 organic life. That majestic spectacle is a 
 spectacle as plainly for the eye of reason as any 
 
 1 "The Three Barriers," p. 96.
 
 29 Anima Mundi. 
 
 diagram of mathematic. That majestic spec- 
 tacle could have been constructed, was con- 
 structed, only in reason, for reason, and by 
 reason. From beyond Orion and the Pleiades, 
 across the green hem of earth, up to the im- 
 perial personality of man, all, the furthest, the 
 deadest, the dustiest, is for fusion in the invisible 
 point of the single Ego which alone glorifies it. 
 For the subject, and on the model of the subject, 
 all is made." * 
 
 " But the stone doth not deliberate whether 
 it shall descend, nor the wheat take counsel 
 whether or not it shall grow. Even men dc 
 not advise how their hearts shall beat, though 
 without that pulse they cannot live. What then 
 can be more clear than that those natural agents 
 which work constantly, for tliose ends which they 
 themselves cannot perceive, must be directed by 
 some high and over-ruling wisdom, and who is 
 that but the great Artificer who works in all of 
 them ? . . . For, as ' every house is builded 
 by some man,' and the earth bears no such 
 creature of itself; stones do not grow into a wall, 
 or first hew and square, then unite and fasten 
 themselves together ; trees sprout not cross 
 like dry and sapless beams, nor spars and tiles 
 
 1 " As Regards Protoplasm," p. 37.
 
 Scientific Sophisms. 291 
 
 arrange themselves into a roof ; as these are the 
 supplies of art, and testimonies to the under- 
 standing of man, the great artificer on earth, so 
 is the world itself but a house, the habitation 
 and the handiwork of an Infinite Intelligence, 
 and ' He who built all things is GOD.' " * 
 
 a 17 86^a 64? TOU? atwi/a? TWV alwvwv. a/j,r}v. 
 
 1 Pearson : " On the Creed," Art I. Vide in/rd, Ap- 
 pendix, Note K.
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 NOTE A. PAGE 5. 
 CHORUS. 
 
 a. 
 
 Life and the universe show spontaneity : 
 Down with ridiculous notions of Deity 
 Churches and creeds are all lost in the mists 
 Truth must be sought with the Positivists. 
 
 If you are pious (mild form of insanity), 
 
 Bow down and worship the mass of Humanity. 
 
 Other religions are buried in mists, 
 
 We 're our own Gods, say the Positivists. 
 
 EUELPIDES. 
 
 These Positivists are very positive. 
 
 PEISTHETAIRUS. 
 
 And very negative too. I can't agree 
 With folk who fancy they're their own creators. 
 
 " The British Birds. By the Ghost of Aristophanes," 
 (Mortimer Collins), 1872. P. 47, et seq.
 
 294 Appendix. 
 
 NOTE B. PAGE 27. 
 
 In the Third Edition of his " First Principles" (Stereo- 
 typed), Mr. Spencer, concluding his observations on this 
 topic, says, " From the remotest past which Science 
 can fathom, up to the novelties of yesterday, an essential 
 trait of Evolution has been the transformation of the 
 homogeneous into the heterogeneous." And his last 
 word on the subject is this : 
 
 " As we now understand it, Evolution is definable as 
 a change from an incoherent homogeneity to a coherent 
 heterogeneity, accompanying' the dissipation of motion 
 and integration of matter." Pp. 359, 360. 
 
 NOTE C. PAGES 175 and 214. 
 
 Lawrence, who quotes in confirmation the words of 
 Cuvier, thus concludes his disquisition on the subject : 
 " We may conclude, then, from a general review of the 
 preceding facts, that nature has provided, by the INSUR- 
 MOUNTABLE BARRIER of instinctive aversion, of sterility 
 in the hybrid offspring, and in the allotment of species 
 to different parts of the earth, against any corruption 
 or change of species in wild animals. We must therefore 
 admit, for all the species which we know at present, as 
 sufficiently distinct and constant, a distinct origin and 
 common date." Lectures on Physiology. First Edition. 
 P. 261. 
 
 Cuvier had previously said, " La nature a soin d'em- 
 pecher 1'alteration des especes, qui pourroit rdsulter de 
 leur melange, par 1'a version mutuelle qu'elle leur a donnde : 
 il faut toutes les ruses, toute la contrainte de 1'homme 
 pour faire contracter ces unions, meme aux especes qui se 
 ressemblent le plus . . . aussi ne voyons nous pas 
 dans nos bois d'individus intermediaires entre le lievre
 
 Appendix. 295 
 
 et le lapin, entre le cerf et le daim, entre la marte et la 
 fouine?" Discours Preliminaire. P. 76. (See also P. 71). 
 And subsequently, M. Flourens, " II y a deux 5arac- 
 teres qui font juger de 1'espece : la forme, comme dit 
 M. Darwin, ou la ressemSlance, et le ftconditt. Mais il 
 y a loiigtemps que j'ai fait voir que la ressemblance, la 
 forme, n'est qu'un caractere accessoire : le seul caractire 
 essentiel est la FECONDITE. . . . L'espece est d'une 
 ficonditt continue, et toutes les varie'te's sont entre elles 
 d'une ftconditt continue, ce qui prouve qu'elles ne sont 
 pas sorties de 1'espece, qu'elles restent espece qu'elle ne 
 sont que 1'espece, qui s'est diversement nuancde. Au 
 contraire, les especes sont distinctes entre elles, par la 
 raison decisive, qu'il n'y a entre elles qu'une fe'condite' 
 born^e. J'ai de*ja dit cela, mais je ne saurais trop le 
 redire." " Examen du Livre de M. Darwin, Sur FOri~ 
 gine," etc. Pp. 34-36. 
 
 NOTE D. PAGE 221. 
 
 M There was an APE in the days that were earlier 
 Centuries passed, and his hair became curlier ; 
 Centuries more gave a thumb toJLiis wrist 
 Then he was MAN, and a Positivist." 
 
 I" The British Birds," ut sup., p. 48.) 
 
 NOTE E. PAGE 221. 
 
 "n. Now these are the generations of the higher 
 vertebrata. In the cosmic period the Unknowable evo- 
 luted the bipedal mammalia. 
 
 12. And every man of the earth while he was yet a 
 monkey, and the horse while he was a hipparion, and the 
 hipparion before he was an oredon. 
 
 13. Out of the ascidian came the amphibian and begat
 
 296 Appendix. 
 
 the pentadactyle ; and the pentadactyle by inheritance 
 and selection produced the hylobate, from which are the 
 simiadae in all their tribes. 
 
 14. And out of the simiadae the lemur prevailed above 
 his fellows, and produced the platyrhine monkey. 
 
 15. And the platyrhine begat the catarrhine, and the 
 catarrhine monkey begat the anthropoid ape, and the ape 
 begat the longimanous orang, and the orang begat the 
 chimpanzee, and the chimpanzee evoluted the what-is-iL 
 
 1 6. And the what-is-it went into the land of Nod and 
 took him a wife of the longimanous gibbons. . 
 
 17. And in process of the cosmic period were born 
 unto them and their children the anthropomorphic prim- 
 ordial types. 
 
 18. The homunculus, the prognathus, the troglodyte, 
 the autochthon, the terragen : these are the generations 
 of primeval man." The New Cosmogony. 
 
 NOTE F. PAGE 223. 
 
 " ' Will you have why and wherefore, and the fact 
 Made plain as pikestaff?' modern Science asks. 
 ' That mass man sprung from was a jelly-lump 
 Once on a time ; he kept an after course 
 Through fish and insect, reptile, bird and beast, 
 Till he attained to be an ape at last 
 Or last but one.' " 
 
 " Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau : Saviour of Society." 
 By Robert Browning. Smith, Elder & Co., 1871.* P. 68. 
 
 NOTE G. PAGE 282. 
 
 " Except by neglecting to distinguish between sight and 
 hearing, the effects, and light and sound, their respective
 
 Appendix. 297 
 
 causes, it would surely have been impossible for Professor 
 Huxley to come to the strange conclusion that if all living 
 beings were blind and deaf, ' darkness and silence would 
 everywhere reign.' Had he not himself previously ex- 
 plained that light and sound are peculiar motions com- 
 municated to the vibrating particles of an universally 
 diffused ether, which motions, on reaching the eye or 
 ear, produce impressions which, after various modifica- 
 tions, result eventually in seeing or hearing? How these 
 motions are communicated to the ether matters not. 
 Only it is indispensable to note that they are not com- 
 municated by the percipient owner of the eye or ear, so 
 that the fact of there being no percipient present cannot 
 possibly furnish any reason why the motions should not 
 go on all the same. 
 
 " But as long as they did go on there would necessarily 
 be light and sound ; for the motions are themselves light 
 and sound. If, on returning to his study in which, an 
 hour before, he had left a candle burning and a clock 
 ticking, Professor Huxley should perceive from the ap- 
 pearance of candle and clock that they had gone on 
 burning and ticking during his absence, would he doubt 
 that they had likewise gone on producing the motions 
 constituting and termed light and sound, notwithstanding' 
 that no eyes or ears had been present to see or hear? 
 But if he did not doubt this, how could he any more 
 doubt that, although all sentient creatures suddenly be- 
 came eyeless and earless, the sun might go on shining, 
 and the wind roaring, and the sea bellowing as before?" 
 Thornton's "Huxley ism? 
 
 NOTE H. PAGE 287. 
 
 It is important to observe that not a few of those who 
 strenuously maintain a doctrine of Evolution, (though not 
 Mr. Darwin's doctrine,) not a few even of Mr. Darwin's 
 
 X
 
 298 Appendix. 
 
 most ardent admirers, maintain at the same time and not 
 less strenuously, that the facts in relation to that theory 
 are altogether inexplicable, apart from the recognition of 
 an Intelligent Designer, a presiding Mind, a Universal 
 Power, creative, formative, sustaining. 
 
 Thus, for instance, Mr. 'Thornton, while eulogizing what 
 he calls "the soundness of all the main and really essential 
 principles of Darwinism," exposes with just severity the 
 incompetence and inadequacy of the theories adopted 
 and necessarily adopted by those Ideologists who reject 
 teleology. 
 
 When Mr. Darwin attempts to account for Instinct by 
 hypothecating the accumulation of slight variations from 
 a primordial type "variations produced by the same un- 
 known causes as those which produce slight deviations of 
 bodily structure," Mr. Thornton replies : " But here I am 
 once more compelled to join issue with him. Of the 
 causes which he styles unknown, I maintain that we know 
 at least thus much either they are themselves intelligent 
 forces, or they are forces acting under intelligent direction ; 
 and. in support of this proposition I need not perhaps do 
 more than show from Mr. Darwin's example what infinitely 
 harder things must be accepted by those who decline to 
 accept this." 
 
 Having done this most elaborately, and conceded the 
 long list of "admissions" for which " not a little liberality 
 is required," he thus concludes : 
 
 " Let us, however, liberally waive this and all similar objections, 
 and assume a community of hive bees to have been, in the utterly 
 unaccountable manner indicated by the term spontaneous variation, 
 developed from a meliponish stock. Unfortunately, all our liberality 
 will be found to have been thrown away without perceptibly simpli- 
 fying the problem to be solved. For whatever be among meliponae 
 the distribution of the generative capacities, among hive bees, at any 
 rate, all workers are sterile neuters, which never have any offspring 
 to whom to bequeath their cell-making skill, while the queen-bee and 
 drones, which alone can become parents, have no such, skill to be-
 
 Appendix. 299 
 
 queath. Clearly, the formula of 'descent with modification by 
 natural selection,' is, in its literal sense, utterly inapplicable here. In 
 whatever manner the cell-making faculty might have been acquired 
 by the first homogeneous swarm of hive bees, it must inevitably have 
 terminated with the generation with which it commenced, if trans- 
 nvssion by direct descent had been necessary for its continuance. 
 The only resource open to Mr. Darwin is to suppose not merely 
 (what is indeed, obviously the fact) that queen-bee after queen-bee, 
 besides generating each in turn a progeny of workers endowed with 
 instincts which their parents did not possess and could not therefore 
 impart, generated also princess-bees destined in due season to gene- 
 rate a working progeny similarly endowed with instincts underived 
 from their parents ; but to suppose, further, that all this has hap- 
 pened in the total absence of aim, object, intention, or design. 
 
 "Now that all this should have so happened, although not abso- 
 lutely inconceivable ; nor, therefore, absolutely impossible, is surely 
 too incredible to be believed except in despair of some other hypo- 
 thesis a trifle less preposterous. It is surely not worth while to set 
 the doctrine 01 probabilities so completely at naught, for the sake of 
 
 AN EXPLANATION WHICH AVOWEDLY LEAVES EVERY DIFFICULTY 
 
 UNEXPLAINED, referring them all to causes not simply unknown 
 but unconjecturable. 
 
 "What excuse then have philosophers, of all people, for doing 
 this in preference to the simple expedient of supposing that, although 
 the parturient bee, queen o. other, cannot intend that any of her 
 progeny should be more bounteously endowed than herself, ' there 
 is AN INDEPENDENT INTELLIGENCE that does so intend T "" Re- 
 cent Phases ot Scientific Atheism." 
 
 NOTE J PAGE 190. 
 
 THE FINE OLD ATOM MOLECULE. 
 
 AlR." The Fine O id English Gentleman." 
 
 (To be sutig at all gatherings Oj advanced Sciolists and 
 Scientists.) 
 
 We'll sing you a grand new song, evolved from a 'cute 
 
 young pate, 
 Of a fine old Atom-Molecule of prehistoric date,
 
 300 Appendix. 
 
 In size infinitesimal, in potencies though great, 
 And self-formed for developing at a prodigious rate- 
 Like a fine old Atom-Molecule, 
 Of the young World's proto-prime ! 
 
 In it slept all the forces in our cosmos that run rife, 
 To stir Creation's giants or its microscopic life ; 
 Harmonious in discord, and cooperant in strife, 
 To this small cell committed, the World lived with his 
 Wife 
 
 In this fine old Atom-Molecule, 
 
 Of the young World's proto-prime ! 
 
 In this autoplastic archetype of Protean protein lay 
 
 All the humans Space has room for, or for whom Time 
 
 makes a day, 
 
 From the'Sage whose words of wisdom Prince or Parlia- 
 ment obey, 
 
 To the Parrots who but prattle, and the Asses who but 
 bray- 
 So full was this Atom-Molecule, 
 Of the young World's proto-prime ! 
 
 All brute-life, from Lamb to Lion, from the Serpent to 
 the Dove, 
 
 All that pains the sense or pleases, all the heart can 
 loathe or love, 
 
 All instincts that drag downwards, all desires that up- 
 wards move, 
 
 Were caged, a " happy family," cheek-by-jowl and hand- 
 in-glove, 
 
 In this fine old Atom-Molecule, 
 Of the young World's proto-prime ! 
 
 In it Order grew from Chaos, Light out of Darkness 
 
 shined, 
 Design sprang up by Accident, Law's rule from Hazard 
 
 blind,
 
 Appendix. 30 1 
 
 The Soul-less Soul evolving against, not after, kind 
 As the Life- less Life developed, and the Mind-less ripened 
 Mind, 
 
 In this fine old Atom- Molecule, 
 
 Of the young World's proto-prime I 
 
 Then bow down, Mind, to Matter ; from brain-fibre, Will, 
 
 withdraw ; 
 Fall Man's heart to cell Ascidian, sink Man's hand to 
 
 Monkey's paw ; 
 
 And bend the knee to Protoplast in philosophic awe 
 Both Creator and Created, at once work and source of 
 Law, 
 
 And our Lord be the Atom- Molecule, 
 Of the young World's proto-prime 1 
 
 Punch. 
 
 NOTE K. PAGE 298. 
 
 While these latter sheets are passing through the press, 
 there appears in The World, the paragraph here sub- 
 joined ; a paragraph interesting and important under any 
 circumstances, but under existing circumstances, doubly 
 so. 
 
 "Frank Buckland died on the igth ultimo [*.<?., Dec. 
 1880], working to the last. Two days before (on the 
 1 7th), he finished the preface to his latest book, the 
 Natural History of British Fishes. From early sheets 
 of that preface, I make the following extract, in which 
 the dying man evidently, from the context, not then 
 knowing himself dying makes a declaration of belief 
 which is wholly antagonistic to the theories of Darwin 
 and his school : 
 
 " ' I have another object in writing this book ; it is to 
 endeavour to show the truth of the good old doctrines of 
 the Bridgewater Treatises, which have so ably demon-
 
 3O2 Appendix. 
 
 strated the " power \ wisdom, and goodness of God, as 
 manifested in the Creation" Of late years the doctrines 
 of so-called "Evolution" and "Development," have seem- 
 ingly gained ground amongst those interested in natural 
 history ; but I have too much faith in the good sense 
 and natural acumen of my fellow countrymen to think 
 that these tenets will be very long-lived. To put 
 matters very straight, I steadfastly believe that the Great 
 Creator, as indeed we are directly told, made all things 
 perfect and " very good " from the beginning ; perfect 
 and very good every created thing is now found to be, 
 and will so continue to the end of time.' " 
 
 M.B.B.,
 
 303 
 
 IB o o ;KL s i uxr 
 
 THE STANDARD LIBRARY. 
 
 THEIR STERLING WORTH. 
 
 OF OJRITICS. 
 
 Life of Cromwell. 
 
 NEW YORK SUN: 
 
 " Mr. Hood's biography is a positive 
 boon to tue mass of readers, because it 
 present a more correct view of the great 
 soldi'?: Utan any of the shorter lives 
 pub'l-.Juil, whether we compare it with 
 South'.'.y'a, Guizot's, or even Forster's." 
 
 FACIFIC CHURCHMAN, San 
 
 Francisco : 
 
 " The fairest and most readable of the 
 numerous biographies of Cromwell." 
 GOOD LITERATURE, New York : 
 
 " If all these books will prove as fresh 
 and readable as Hood's ' Cromwell,' the 
 literary merit of the series will be as high 
 as the price is low." 
 NEW YORK DAILY GRAPH- 
 IC: 
 
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 account of the great Protector. Crom- 
 well was the heroic servant of a sublime 
 cause. A complete sketch of the man 
 and the period." 
 CHRISTIAN UNION, New York : 
 
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 told with interest in every part and with 
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 and flowing, and he sets forth and holds . 
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 The style is good, the analysis searching, 
 aiuLwittadd much to the author's fame 
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 " This book tells the story of Crom- 
 well's life in a captivating way. It reads 
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 II. 
 
 Science in Short Chapters. 
 
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 101 
 
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 book of intense practical thought, which 
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 which needs no recommendation." 
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 England : 
 
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 we all want to know." 
 
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 year's schooling, and it will go where 
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 For such a book twenty-five cents seems 
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 Mass. : 
 
 "A marvellous book, as fascinating as 
 Dickens, to be consulted as an authority 
 along with Britunuica, and even fuller 
 of practical hints than the latter's ar- 
 ticles. Id) not know how you can 
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 "Mr. Williams' work is a practic&I 
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 III. 
 
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 cinnati, Ohio: 
 
 " It is finely critical and appreciative ; 
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 rarity -imong Enirlii-hmcn." 
 SALEM TIMES, Mass.: 
 
 "Xo writer in England was, in all 
 respects, better qualified to wri'e a book 
 on American Humorists than Ilaweia." 
 
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 ronto : 
 
 "We have been specially amused with 
 the chapter on poor Artemns Ward, 
 which we read on a railway journey. 
 We fear our ftllow-passengers would 
 think something ailed us, for laugh we 
 did, in spite of all attempts to preserve 
 a sedate appearance.' 1 
 OCCIDENT, San Francisco : 
 
 "This book is pleasant readmit, with 
 sparkle enough in it as the writer is him- 
 self a wit to cure one of the 'blues.' " 
 DA \JiURY NEWS, Conn.: 
 
 "Mr. Ilaweis gives a brief bibliograph- 
 ical sketch of each writer mentioned in 
 the book, an analysis of his style, and 
 classifies each into a distinct type from 
 the others. He presents copious ex- 
 tracts from their works, making an en- 
 tertaining book."
 
 305 
 
 CENTRAL BAPTIST, St. Louis : 
 
 " A perusal of this volume will give the 
 reader a more correct idea of the charac- 
 ter discussed than he would probably 
 get from reading their biographies. The 
 lecture is analytical, penetrative, terse, 
 incisive, and candid. The book is worth 
 its price, and will amply repay reading." 
 
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 "Torse and brief as the soul of wit 
 itself." 
 
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 and wisdom of Washington Irving, Oliver 
 W. Holmes, James R. Lowell, Artemus 
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 does it con amor^s." 
 
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 "Rev. H. R. Haweis is a writer too 
 well-known to need commendation at 
 onr hands for, at least, his literary stylo. 
 The general result is that not a page re- 
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 delphia : 
 
 " The peculiar style, the mental char- 
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 of these prominent writers, arc presented 
 with great clearness and discrimination." 
 
 IV. 
 
 Lives of Illustrious Shoemakers. 
 
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 VOC AT f, Cincinnati: 
 
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 we were surprised that anybody should 
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 scores of thousands. 1 ' 
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 Baltimore : 
 
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 vouchsafed only to a few." 
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 306 
 
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 cinnati : 
 
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 tucky : 
 
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 human family with soles for their feet." 
 
 THE WESTERN MAIL, England : 
 41 Written with taste and tact, in a 
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 ronto : 
 
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 written in a very popular style." 
 
 V. 
 
 Flotsam and Jetsain. 
 
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 w Amusing and readable. . . . Among 
 the successful books of this order must 
 be classed that which Mr. Bowles has re- 
 cently offered to the public." 
 NEW YOKK WORLD.- 
 
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 to the end." 
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 "It is a book well worth reading, . . . 
 full of thought."
 
 307 
 
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 VI. 
 
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 NATIONAL BAPTIST, Fhila. : 
 
 " A book full of wisdom ; exceedingly 
 bright and practical. 1 ' 
 
 PACIFIC CHURCHMAN, San 
 
 Francisco : 
 
 " The best answer we have seen to the 
 common and most puzzling question, 
 ' What shall I read ? ' Scholarly and 
 beautiful." 
 
 D ANBURY NEWS: 
 
 "Its hints, rules, and directions for 
 reading are, just now, what thousands 
 of people are needing." 
 
 CHRISTIAN WITNESS, New- 
 market, N. H. : 
 " Clear, tei se, elegant in style. A boon 
 
 to young students, a pleasure for schol- 
 ars." 
 NEW YORK HERALD: 
 
 "Mr. David Pryde, the author of 
 ' Highways of Literature ; or, What to 
 Read, and How to Read,' is an erudite 
 Scotchman who has taught with much 
 success in Edinburgh. His' hints on the 
 best books and the best method of mas- 
 tering them are valuable, and likely to 
 prove of grept practical use." 
 NEW YORK TABLET: 
 
 " This is a most useful and interesting 
 work. It consists of papers in which 
 the author offers rules by which the 
 render may discover the best books, and 
 be euabletfto study them, properly." 
 
 VII. 
 
 Colin Clout's Calendar. 
 
 LEEDS MERCURY, England : 
 
 "The best specimens of popular sci- 
 entific expositions that we have ever 
 had the good fortune to fall in with." 
 NEW YORK NATION: 
 
 " The charm of such books is not a 
 little heightened when, as in this case, 
 a fe\v touches of local history, of cus- 
 toms, words, aii'l places are added." 
 AMERICAN REFORMER, New 
 
 York: 
 
 "There certainly is no deterioration in 
 the quality of the books of the STANDARD 
 LIBBABY. This book consists of short 
 
 chapters upon natural history, written 
 in an easy, fascinating style, giving rare 
 and valuable information concerning 
 trees, plants, flowers, and animals. Such 
 books should have a wide circulation 
 beyond the list of regular subscribers. 
 Some will criticise the author's inclina- 
 tion to attribute the marvellous thingf 
 which are found in these plants, animals, 
 etc., to a long process of development 
 rather than to Divine agency. But the 
 information is none the less valuable, 
 whatever may be the process of these 
 developments."
 
 fDINB URGH SCOTSMAN, Scot 
 
 land : 
 
 " There can be no donbt of Grant 
 Allen's competence as a writer on nat- 
 ural history subjects." 
 
 NEW YORK HERALD: 
 
 " A book that lovers of natural history 
 il. read with delight. The author is 
 euch a -worshipper of mature that he 
 gains onr sympathy at once." 
 
 THE ACADEMY, London : 
 
 " The point in which Mr Grant Allen 
 is beyond rivalry is in his command of 
 language. By this we do not mean only 
 his rich vocabulary, but include also his 
 arrangement of thought and his manip- 
 ulation of sentences. We could imagine 
 few better lessons to a pupil of Eng- 
 lish than to be set to analyze and explain 
 the charm of Mr. Grant Allen's style." 
 
 CANADIAN BAPTIST, Toronto : 
 "Mr. Grant Allen is one of the few 
 scientific men who can invest common 
 natural objects and processes with poeti- 
 cal beauty and make them attractive to 
 ordinary readers." 
 
 HERALD, Monmouth, Oregon : 
 
 " A wonderful book by a charming 
 naturalist. Lovers of flowers, birds, 
 plants, etc., will prize this volume high- 
 ly." 
 
 NEW YORK JOURNAL OF 
 COMMERCE: 
 
 " A charming volume, free from the 
 taint of exaggeration and sensational- 
 ism." 
 
 INDIANAPOLIS SEKTINEL: 
 
 ' He is as keen an observer as Thoreau 
 or Burroughs." 
 
 CHRISTIAN STANDARD, Cin- 
 cinnati : 
 
 "They are written in a pleasant and 
 captivating style, and contain much valu- 
 able information.' ' 
 
 METHODIST PROTESTANT. 
 BiUimore. 
 
 "One of the finest productions of 
 modern times." 
 GOOD LITERATURE, New York 
 
 " A trustworthy guide in natural his- 
 tory, as well as a delightful, entertaining 
 writer.!' 
 
 VIII. 
 
 George Eliot's Essays. 
 
 THE CRITIC, New York : 
 
 " Messrs. Funk & Wagnalls have done 
 a real service to George Eliot's innumer- 
 able admirers by reprinting in their 
 popular STANDARD LIBRARY the great 
 novelist's occasional contributions to the 
 periodical press." 
 NEW YORK SUN: 
 
 "In the case of George Eliot espe- 
 cially, whose reviews were anonymous, 
 and who could never have supposed that 
 such fugitive ventures would ever be 
 widely associated with the Lame of a 
 diffident and obscure young woman, we 
 ain access iu her early essays, as in no 
 other of her published writing?, to the 
 eanctuary of her deepest convictions, and 
 to the intellectual workshop in which 
 
 literary methods and processes were 
 tested, discarded, or approved, and liter- 
 ary tools fashioned and manipulated 
 long before the author had discerned the 
 large purposes to which they were to be 
 applied. . . . Looking back over the 
 whole ground covered by these admira- 
 ble papers, we are at no loss to under- 
 stand why George Eliot should have 
 made it a rule to read no criticisms on 
 her own stories. She had nothing to 
 learn from critics. She was ji^tifled in 
 assuming that not one (if th.se who took 
 upon themselves to r.ppraise her :. 
 ments had given half of the time or a 
 tithe of the intellect, to the determina- 
 tion of the right aims and processes of 
 the English novel which as these re-
 
 309 
 
 views attest, she had herself expended 
 on that object before venturing upon 
 that form of compos 1 tion which Fielding 
 termed the modern epic." 
 EX A MINER, New York : 
 
 "These essays ought to be read by 
 any one who would understand this 
 part of George Eliot's career ; and, in- 
 deed, they furnish the key to all her 
 subsequent literary achievements." 
 BROOKLYN DAILY EAGLE: 
 
 "It is rather suprising that these es- 
 says have not been collected and pub- 
 lished before, and it is a matter of con- 
 gratulation that they are now issued." 
 CHRISTIAN ADVOCATE, New 
 York : 
 
 " They show the versatility of the great 
 novelist. One on E van <.',! :cal Teaching 
 is especially interesting." 
 INDIANAPOLIS SENTIfiEL: 
 
 "Nathan Shepherd's introduction to 
 these essays is worth many times the 
 price of the volume." 
 EPISCOPAL METHODIST, Bal- 
 timore : 
 
 "Everybody of culture wants to read 
 all George Eliot wrote." 
 
 NORTHERN CHRISTIAN AD' 
 
 YOG ATE, Syracuse : 
 "The compiler of this collection has 
 done a unique and a useful work." 
 
 METHODIST PROTESTANT, 
 
 Baltimore : 
 
 " They comprise some of the best at 
 the author's writings." 
 
 ZION'S HERALD, Boston : 
 
 "As remarkable illustrations of her 
 masculine metaphysical ability as is evi- 
 denced in her strongest fictions." 
 CHURCH UNION, New York : 
 
 "Nathan Sheppard, the collector of 
 the ten essays in this form, has written a 
 highly laudatory but critical introduction 
 to the book, on her 'Analysis of Mo- 
 tives,' arid after reading it, it seems to 
 us that every one who would read her 
 works profitably and truly, should first 
 have read it." 
 
 HARTFORD EVENING POST: 
 
 "They are admirable pieces of literary 
 workmanship, but they are much more 
 than that. . . . These essays are triumphs 
 of critical analysis combined with epi- 
 grammatic pungency, subtle irony, and 
 a wit that never seems strained." 
 
 IX. 
 
 Charlotte Bronte. 
 
 DAILY ADVERTISER, Newark, 
 
 N. J. : 
 
 " There was but one Charlotte Bronte, 
 as there was but one William Shake- 
 speare. To write her life acceptably one 
 must have made it the study of years ; 
 have studied it in the integrity of all its 
 relations, and considered it from the 
 broadest as well as from the narrowest 
 aspect. This is what Mrs. llolloway 
 Las done." 
 ZION'S HERALD, Boston : 
 
 " This well-written sketch, with selec- 
 tions from her writing?, will be appre- 
 ciated and give a clear idea of the re- 
 markable intellectual ability of this 
 gifted but heavily-burdened woman." 
 
 NEW YORK HERALD: 
 
 " There are, at times, nights of elo- 
 quence that rise to grandeur." 
 BROOKLYN DAILY EAGLE: 
 
 " Managed with the rare ekill we might 
 expect at the hands of a fuir-minOed 
 woman dealing with the traits ol'charac- 
 ttr and the actual career of one who, 
 amid extraordinary circumstances of 
 adversity, plodded her way to fame 
 within the span of a brief lifetime." 
 SOUTHERN CHURCHMAN, 
 Richmond, Va. : 
 
 "There are few memoirs more sad 
 than those of this gifted woman and her 
 Bisters. An interesting vorame at the 
 cheap price of fifteen cents."
 
 310 
 
 JOURNAL AND MESSENGER, 
 
 Cincinnati : 
 
 "The reader, for a small sum, will 
 obtain quite a thorough understanding 
 of the characteristics and literary abil- 
 ity of Miss Bronte, and also be placed 
 in possession of some of her rarest 
 thoughts." 
 
 EPISCOPAL RECORDER, Phil- 
 adelphia : 
 
 " The manner in which the reminis- 
 cences are narrated is very agreeable, 
 
 and the reader wonders how so fascinat- 
 ing a life-story could be found in the 
 prosy confines of literature. ... A thor- 
 oughly enjoyable style of description 
 and a deep sympathy with the subject 
 render Mrs. Holloway's sketch exceed- 
 ingly readable." 
 
 CENTRAL CHRISTIAN AD- 
 VOCATE, St. Louis : . 
 " The book will be welcomed by all 
 lovers of pure bibliographical litera- 
 ture." 
 
 Sam Hobart. 
 
 DAILY FREE PRESS, London, 
 Ontario : 
 
 " The continual additions made to the 
 STANDAKD LIBRARY of works of a high 
 order is evidence that the reading public 
 can easily absorb something more useful 
 than the mere novel. . . . The latest 
 issue deals with the life of a railroad 
 engineer Sam Hobart, one of the mill- 
 ion men who are employed in the rail- 
 way service" of America. ... It is a 
 marvel of cheapness and biographical 
 excellence." 
 NEW YORK WORLD: 
 
 "A graphic narrative and a strong 
 picture of a life full of heroism and 
 changes. Full of encouragement, and as 
 thrilling as a romance. " 
 GUARDIAN, Truro, Nova Scotia: 
 
 " The author's object in writing it was 
 to portray the possibilities of happiness 
 and usefulness within the reach of a 
 workinirnun content to fill the sphere of 
 usefulness awarded him, and willing to 
 lend a helping hand to do work for God 
 and humanity. It is just such a book as 
 we would like to see in the hands of rail- 
 road men." 
 
 DANKURY NEWS: 
 
 "It is doubtful if any working person 
 can read this book, and not become a 
 better worker and a better man." 
 
 EPISCOPAL 3IETBODIST, Bal- 
 timore' : 
 
 " A charming book. All railroad men 
 will be interested in it, and it will pay 
 professional men to read it." 
 CHRISTIAN SECRETARY, 
 Hartford, Conn.: 
 
 " The object of the book is to show 
 how happy and useful a workingman 
 may be, if content in his work and will- 
 ing to do well. Writt-en in a very in- 
 teresting way, and while it will probably 
 be devoured by railroad men, it will af- 
 ford very pleasurable reading to all." 
 RELIGIOUS HERALD, Hart- 
 ford, Conn.: 
 
 "An entertaining book designed to 
 aid in making one true and noble." 
 LUTHERAN OBSERVER, Phila- 
 delphia : 
 
 "Dr. Fulton has done a good work 
 in writing this story of a railroad m:tn. 
 It is a genuine record of heroic fidelity 
 to duty. Let it be scattered by the 
 thousands." 
 
 CHURCH ADVOCATE, Harris- 
 burgh : 
 
 "If every workingman and employer 
 would follow its principles, the sohition 
 of the Labor Question would be near at 
 hand."
 
 311 
 
 XI. 
 
 Successful Men. 
 
 JOURNAL OF EDUCATION, 
 
 Boston : 
 
 " This book possesses all the charm 
 of biography of distinguished men, 
 and abounds in witty, humorous, and 
 telling anecdotes and illustrations." 
 
 INTER-OCEAN, Chicago : 
 
 "The style is terse, vigorous, and 
 pleasant, abounding in sententious 
 maxims, which are well calculated to 
 impress young readers. Nowhere have 
 we found more incentives to honorable 
 living so delightfully and impressively 
 told than in this volume. If it could be 
 stuffed into every boy's satchel as he 
 journeys from home it would be well." 
 
 CHRISTIAN UNION, New York : 
 " We cordially commend this book to 
 young men." ^ 
 
 YOUNG CHU2^3HMAN, Mil- 
 waukee : 
 
 " Pull of good maxims and sound 
 advice for the young." 
 
 BROOKLYN (N.Y.) EAGLE: 
 " A wonderfully instructive book." 
 
 LUTHERAN OBSERVER, 
 
 Philadelphia : 
 
 " Clear, forcible, pungent nearly 
 every page sparkles with fresh illustra- 
 tion or a pertinent story." 
 
 CHRISTIAN SECRETAR Y, 
 
 Hartford, Ct. : 
 
 "Full of sound, wise, and practical 
 advice to all young men of all occupa- 
 tions. Written with an earnest, and 
 noble purpose to help and encourage 
 
 our youth. It is placed at a low prie, 
 and ought to have a wide circulation." 
 NEW YORK OBSERVER: 
 
 "This book will no doubt be found 
 helpful to those who apprehend the 
 truth most easily when presented con- 
 cretely and in a pictorial form." 
 D ANBURY NEWS, Conn. : 
 
 " Invaluable to the youth standing on 
 the threshold of manhood." 
 PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL, 
 Philadelphia : 
 
 " Clear, stirring, convincing, sug- 
 gestive, and highly beneficial.'' 
 
 ZION'S HERALD, Boston : 
 
 " A capital book to place in the hands 
 of young men commencing a business 
 or professional career." 
 EVENING CHRONICLE, New 
 Orleans : 
 
 "An excellent book of its kind. 
 Pleasant reading. Contains many hints 
 both original and practical." 
 OCCIDENT, San Francisco : 
 
 "Full of sprightly and interesting 
 matter." 
 
 CHRISTIAN CHRONICLE, 
 Montpelier Vt. : 
 
 " Worth many times its price." 
 PAGE COURIER, Luray, Va. : 
 
 " We would like ^o see this book in 
 the hands of every youth. Its truths 
 are so forcibly stated that they cannot 
 fail to impress deeply the minds of 
 those who read it. High as we prize 
 our copy, we will loan it to any young 
 man who will promise to read it." 
 
 XII. 
 
 JOURNAL OF COMMERCE, 
 
 New York : 
 " One of the freshest of the series. 
 
 Richard A. Proctor's name is attached 
 to some of the most entertaining papers 
 in the volume."
 
 812 
 
 CllJt ISTIA N SECRETARY, 
 
 Hartford, Conn. : 
 
 " This volume is replete with interest 
 and general nformaiion concerning se- 
 crets wrested from the tight grasp of 
 nature." 
 THE CRITIC, New York : 
 
 "Were we to act upon the principle 
 that good wine needs no brush, we 
 should certainly forbear praising the 
 'potable gold' presented in 'Nature 
 Studies.' The twenty-four essays are 
 at once agreeable reading and intellect- 
 ually stimulative." 
 Tf ANBURY (Ct.) NEWS: 
 
 " Although by a scientist, the book is 
 not a teacher of scepticisms. Proctor 
 believes fully in the existence of an all- 
 creating, all-ruling God. But his views 
 of the Creator are greater than ours, be- 
 cause his knowledge of the vastness of 
 time, of space, and of creation are 
 greater than ours. The book is in- 
 tensely interesting, as well as thor- 
 oughly instructive." 
 GOOD LITERATURE, New 
 York : 
 
 " Mr. Allen writes most delightfully 
 in this volume . . . showing always 
 a most thorough sympathy with nature 
 in all her subtle provisions for the sup- 
 port of her favorite children." 
 SCHOOL JO URNAL, New York : 
 
 " Richard A. Proctor is the editor-in- 
 chief of this volume, and this fact is a 
 guarantee of merit in the contents. . . . 
 There is the greatest variety in subjects, 
 and the reader is sure of genuine in- 
 tellectual entertainment wherever he 
 opens the book." 
 
 METHODIST RECORDER, 
 
 Pitisburg : 
 
 " These eminent naturalists give us in 
 this volume mar.y articles as interesting 
 and as exciting as a story in human 
 life, and there is not one that will dis- 
 appoint the most dull reader. The 
 theories advanced iu some of the articles 
 will probably not be accepted, but will 
 be of interest to show the light in 
 which these theories are held by their 
 advocates." 
 
 CHURCH ADVOCATE, Harris- 
 burg, Pa. : 
 " This is a valuable book." 
 
 PRESS YTERIA N JO URNAL, 
 
 Philadelphia : 
 
 "These essays are intensely enter- 
 taining and attractive. In reading one 
 should always carefully discriminate 
 between the facts and the hypotheses of 
 the scientists. The volumes of this 
 series are admirable for summer read- 
 ing." 
 
 CHRISTIAN JOURNAL, Toron- 
 to, Ont. : 
 
 "The essays bristle with indisputa- 
 ble and most interesting facts." 
 
 o-' ION ItlltLE TEACHER, 
 
 Portland, Maine : 
 
 " It is worthy of remark when such a 
 work as this can be bought for this 
 price." 
 
 PRESBYTERIAN WITNESS, 
 
 Halifax, N. S. : 
 
 ' ' A large amount of valuable reading 
 from five of the greatest scientists of 
 the day." 
 
 India, What Can it Teach Us ? 
 
 THE GLOBE, Boston : 
 
 " To judge of the value of Funk & 
 Wagnalls" Standard Library, one may 
 take up an issue at random, each one 
 of the scries thus far being very choice. 
 But in ' India : What Can it Teach L's ?' 
 
 Its most scholarly work is published. It 
 contains some of the richest fruits of 
 Max Muller's life-long study of Sanscrit 
 literature. Such an instructive work at 
 so low a price ought to be eagerly seized 
 upon."
 
 UUSB LIBKAKY
 
 ,,, U ,S,^ H . REGIONAL LIBRARY FA!