MATTER LIVING AND NOT-LIVING. 723 



known causes has been proved, for, till then, the necessity of an addi- 

 tional cause can not appear. The maxim which imposes this condition 

 on hypotheses, known in philosophical literature as Occam's razor, is 

 declared by Sir William Hamilton, who calls it the law of Parcimony, 

 to be " the most important maxim in the regulation of philosophical 

 procedure, when it is necessary to resort to an hypothesis." Its sound- 

 ness is questioned by no one. But Dr. Beale, as we have seen, admits 

 by plain implication, repeatedly, that known causes have not yet been 

 proved inadequate to explain the phenomena of life. His cautious 

 statement is that they are inadequate " in the present state of scientific 

 knowledge." Wherefore, as he must also admit, his assumption of a 

 hyperphysical agent violates flatly the law of Parcimony ; it falls un- 

 der the first stroke of Occam's razor. It is thus doubly illegitimate, 

 on his own showing. 



Finally, the hypothesis, if admitted, would not explain the phe- 

 nomena, since it merely refers them to a power of which confessedly 

 we can know neither the existence nor the laws, assuming to explain 

 that which we do not know now by that which we can never know or 

 so much as represent in thought ; and it goes without saying that an 

 hypothesis which explains nothing is good for nothing. In branding 

 it with illegitimacy, science but renews the stigma that common sense 

 had set on it. 



The hypothesis, it follows, has no standing in the court of science, 

 which rules it out at the threshold ; and to the court of science, be it 

 remembered, Dr. Beale has appealed. One thing, then, is certain : 

 whatever may be the merits or demerits of the hypothesis which he 

 opposes, the hypothesis which he espouses has no merits at all. It is 

 radically vicious, and wholly inadmissible. So far from being " in ac- 

 cordance with reason," it is in flagrant defiance of it. 



It remains to inquire into the remaining hypothesis. If we may 

 credit Dr. Beale, it is as spurious as his own. " If we assume," he 

 tells us, "that phenomena peculiar to life will some day be explained 

 by physics, we certainly act in a manner which is not sanctioned by 

 science we assume, we prophesy ; and prophetic assumptions of every 

 kind are contrary to the spirit of science." That depends on the char- 

 acter of the assumptions. If, like his hypothesis, they are incapable 

 of proof or disproof, besides gratuitously multiplying causes, and ex- 

 plaining nothing after all, they undoubtedly are contrary not only to 

 the spirit but to the letter of science ; but, if they fulfill the conditions 

 of a legitimate hypothesis, in lieu of violating them at all points, as 

 his own assumption does, they as undoubtedly are in strict harmony 

 with science. It would be passing strange if they were not. If "pro- 

 phetic assumptions of every kind " were in truth " contrary to the 

 spirit of science," that " star-eyed " creature would be more con- 

 trary than the privilege of her sex allows, for it is by "prophetic 

 assumptions " that she has won her chief triumphs, nearly everything 



