LIFE AS MECHANISM 



of the universe was composed. If this be true, it 

 is no less certain that the existing world lay, po- 

 tentially, in the cosmic vapour; and that a sufficient 

 intelligence could, from a knowledge of the proper- 

 ties of the molecules of that vapour, have predicted, 

 say the state of the Fauna of Britain in 1869, with as 

 much certainty as one can say what will happen to the 

 vapour of the breath in a cold winter's day."^^ There 

 is not much Agnosticism in that statement nor does 

 it leave a possibility of explaining material phenom- 

 ena by spiritual causes. Comte could certainly sub- 

 scribe to it as a foundation for his Positive Philos- 

 ophy. 



The above quotation is perhaps metaphysical in 

 its nature, it goes back to a time of cosmic nebulosity 

 when one can imagine many things which the man 

 of science has no chance to verify. But we can give a 

 quotation of a different nature where Huxley touches 

 the field of physics and where a physicist has some 

 authority of criticism. Huxley declares: "I hold, 

 with the Materialist, that the human body, like all 

 living bodies, is a machine, all the operations of 

 which will, sooner or later, be explained on physical 

 principles. I believe that we shall, sooner or later, ar- 

 rive at a mechanical equivalent of consciousness, just 

 as we arrived at a mechanical equivalent of heat. If 

 a pound weight falling through a distance of a foot 

 gives rise to a definite amount of heat, which may 



^^ Darzviniana, p. no. 



1:263: 



