XI PHENOMENA OF ORGANIC NATURE 359 
phenomena, and especially all questions relating 
to the origin of vital phenomena, are questions 
_ quite apart from the ordinary run of inquiry, and 
are, by their very nature, placed out of our reach. 
They say that all these phenomena originated 
miraculously, or in some way totally different from 
the ordinary course of nature, and that therefore 
they conceive it to be futile, not to say pre- 
sumptuous, to attempt to inquire into them. 
To such sincere and earnest persons, I would 
only say, that a question of this kind is not to be 
shelved upon theoretical or speculative grounds. 
You may remember the story of the Sophist who 
demonstrated to Diogenes in the most complete 
and satisfactory manner that he could not walk ; 
that, in fact, all motion was an impossibility ; and 
that Diogenes refuted him by simply getting up 
and walking round his tub. So, in the same way, 
the man of science replies to objections of this 
kind, by simply getting up and walking onward, 
_ and showing what science has done and is doing 
—by pointing to that immense mass of facts 
which have been ascertained as systematised 
under the forms of the great doctrines of morpho- 
logy, of development, of distribution, and the 
- like. He sees an enormous mass of facts and laws 
relating to organic beings, which stand on the 
_ ‘same good sound foundation as every other natural 
law. With this mass of facts and laws before us, 
therefore, seeing that, as far as organic matters 
