6 THE CONDUCT OF 



elusions from vague and contradictory probabilities. — Wishing you 

 well, I remain, your obedient servant, Charles Darwin." 

 Assuredly this is chilly, but it is the latitude of the north wind 

 that determines its product. That is a certitude which lies without 

 the bound of " vague and contradictory probabilities." Expose 

 the intellect to the north wind of scientific inquiry, — let it blow 

 through it with all its strength ; but let that intellect first know its 

 own latitude, for snow is never begotten in the tropics. Here, 

 then, we have the conclusions of two of the foremost men of 

 science, and both are negative assertions. 



Now, let ns not hesitate to face the questions to which that 

 method of procedure in scientific investigation brings us. ist, 

 Does the material universe enjoy a perfection of self-consciousness; 

 is it self-interpretive? If so, lack of scientific knowledge, and 

 certainly dissension amongst scientists, can find no part in it. If 

 not, some of the most dogmatic assertions of scientists may arise 

 from ignorance. It cannot be otherwise. 2nd, Has the material 

 universe come into existence by spontaneity of generative force, 

 or in other words, did the existent call itself into being when as 

 yet it was not ? I do not place this before you to mock your 

 intelligence, but simply because it has been a subtlety, however 

 illogical, that has mastered many minds, and to which Professor 

 Tyndall has felt it worth his while to pay sufiicient experimental 

 attention to bring about some setdement. The unaccountable 

 production of mites in cheese, various forms of life in putrid meat, 

 and other forms in decaying vegetable matters, have gone very far 

 to strengthen popular faith in this theory of spontaneous gen- 

 eration. Tyndall's question was, " Does putrid meat spontane- 

 ously generate living forms, or do they come to it from without?" 

 To determine this, he, in hot weather, took two pieces of meat 

 and placed them out of doors. The first was exposed to the 

 atmosphere and unprotected. In a short time it was full of 

 animal life. The second was placed in a receiver and the air 

 exhausted, but allowed to re-enter through a thickness of cotton- 

 wool, the meat thus being in an atmosphere that had been pre- 

 viously filtered. After several days' exposure it remained quite 

 fresh, but the cotton-wool was examined under a microscope and 

 found to contain germ-Ufe in abundance. Here, then, was a 



