124 specific Genesis 



distinctness of 'vitality'; but that certain conditions may 

 determine its sudden and definite manifestation, is main- 

 tained by his friends as regards the earUer days of this 

 planet. There is one expression of Mr. Wright's which it 

 will be well to notice; he says: 'It is not impossible that 

 vital phenomena themselves include orders of forces as 

 distinct as the lowest vital are from chemical phenomena. 

 May not the contrast of merely vital or vegetative pheno- 

 mena with those of sensibility be of such order.' I notice 

 with pleasure this hopeful expression. It is most true that 

 there are these differences of order, but there is one more 

 yet. The intellectual or rational order is as distinct from 

 the merely sensible as is the sensible from the vegetative, 

 or this last from the chemical. Here we touch the one 

 great and fatal error of so many of our leading naturalists. 

 The confusion of intellect with sensation, of reason with 

 the association of sensible images, is, I am persuaded, the 

 fundamental speculative vice of the day. Before concluding 

 this reply there are a few more objections which Mr. Wright 

 does me the honour to make, that must be noticed one 

 after the other. 



I am represented as passing an unfair judgment, because 

 I say that though feeling myself incompetent to advance an 

 opinion as to the correctness of Sir William Thomson's 

 astronomical calculations, I yet assert ' that the fact that they 

 have not been refuted pleads strongly in their favour, when 

 we consider how much they tell against the theory of 

 Mr. Dar^vin.' For my part I am unable to see how an incom- 

 petence for judging astronomical calculations necessarily 

 carries with it an incompetence for judging of the probabi- 

 lity of their truth, resulting from their non-refutation by 

 those whose interest would lead them to refute, and who 

 possess the knowledge and ability to enable them ably to 

 handle the requisite questions and calculations. 



