MATTER LIVING AND NOT-LIVING. 725 



or unknown, physical or hyperphysical, but accepts that which, by 

 universal consent, is not only the cause of inorganic phenomena, but 

 the invariable concomitant, if not the cause, of the phenomena of life. 

 It does not multiply causes with or without necessity, and hence is 

 philosophically clear and clean. Occam's razor may pass over and 

 around it without meeting with a pilous stub. 



And, lastly, inasmuch as the assigned cause is real, and as the final 

 verification of the hypothesis must consist in deducing the phenomena 

 from it, the hypothesis, when verified, will of necessity explain the 

 phenomena not merely in their completeness, but to the exclusion of 

 all other explanations. It is one of those fortunate cases, not too 

 common in the history of science, wherein the explanation of the 

 phenomena is the demonstration of the hypothesis. 



In the judgment of science, therefore, the hypothesis as such is 

 without spot or flaw. So far from being " contrary to reason," it is 

 in perfect accord with it. 



From all of which it appears that the converse of Dr. Beale's opin- 

 ion of the two hypotheses is true. His terms of praise and dispraise 

 were well chosen, but, as it turns out, he mixed them badly before ap- 

 plying them. So much for the opposing theories as theories. 



Having seen that, from the scientific point of view, the hypothesis 

 which Dr. Beale espouses is thoroughly illegitimate, and that the hy- 

 pothesis which he opposes is thoroughly legitimate, we have now to 

 look at the existing evidence in support of the latter ; and here we 

 shall strike Dr. Beale's criticisms, for here their incidence logically 

 falls. With how much force they fall we shall presently see. 



When two series of phenomena shade off into each other by in- 

 sensible gradations, the philosophical presumption is that both series 

 have been generated by one cause ; and it behooves him who would 

 overcome this presumption to draw the line of demarkation between 

 the series, and prove that the phenomena on the opposite sides are so 

 different that they could not have had a common origin. Organic 

 and inorganic phenomena, I need not say, thus shade off into each 

 other ; but no one has been able, though many have made the attempt, 

 to draw a line of absolute demarkation between them, much less to 

 prove that the two series, as arbitrarily distinguished from each other, 

 must have proceeded from different causes. Toward the proof of this 

 the first step has not been taken, and it is safe to say that it never 

 will be ; it is barred by the indissoluble continuity of natural law. 

 Meantime the presumption stands in more than its original strength. 



A kindred presumption, throwing a kindred burden on the shoul- 

 ders of whoever would rebut it, is the presumption that causes which 

 increase an aggregate are competent to originate it. The forces which 

 determine the growth of a crystal, to exemplify, are the forces which 

 produce its embryo ; and the like holds true of all other aggregates 

 below the vital ones. Why not of these also? The forces which 



