comparison. Life, as we have seen,1 is not the offspring of protoplasm, but something which has been superinduced upon, and may be separated from the protoplasm that serves as its material basis. It is therefore distinct from the matter which it animates, and, being thus immaterial, cannot possibly become better known by any analysis of matter." 2

9. "In every living thing there are physicochemical 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 physico-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 occurring in thought, is persistently ignored." "But although the new schools hold it absurd to 1 Vide ante, pp. 119, 120.

Thornton, "Old Fashioned Ethics," pp. 168 et seq.

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 regarded as the attributes of life alone. According to them, it is not "will," or "mind," or even "vital force "-it is merely "the inorganic molecule "—that arranges, governs, guides, controls.

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 such a manner as to give rise to those exquisite and almost mathematically arranged structures," etc.1 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.

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 itself. 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; 2. 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." 1

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. Beale's "Protoplasm," pp. 74, 75, 77, 81.

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 whatever 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

II. To revert, for a moment, from "vitality" to "horologity." When Mr. Lewes a writer distinguished for his opposition to what he 1 Dr. Beale, "Protoplasm," pp. 47, 486.

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," he is guilty of an oversight 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 particular Purpose, which constitutes the "watchforce;" 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 the 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 universal 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.