SCIENTIFIC MATERIALISM. 83 



be poor philosophy to invoke an external agent in the 

 one case, and to reject it in the other. 



Instead of cutting our grain of corn into slices and 

 subjecting it to the action of polarised light, let us 

 place it in the earth, and subject it to a certain degree 

 of warmth. In other words, let the molecules, both of 

 the corn and of the surrounding earth, be kept in that 

 state of agitation which we call % heat. Under these 

 circumstances, the grain and the substances which 

 surround it interact, and a definite molecular architec- 

 ture is the result. A bud is formed ; this bud reaches 

 the surface, where it is exposed to the sun's rays, which 

 are also to be regarded as a kind of vibratory motion. 

 And as the motion of common heat, with which the 

 grain and the substances surrounding it were first 

 endowed, enabled the grain and these substances to 

 exercise their mutual attractions and repulsions, and 

 thus to coalesce in definite forms, so the specific motion 

 of the sun's rays now enables the green bud to feed 

 upon the carbonic acid and the aqueous vapour of the 

 air. The bud appropriates those constituents of both 

 for which it has an elective attraction, and permits the 

 other constituent to return to the atmosphere. Thus 

 the architecture is carried on. Forces are active at the 

 root, forces are active in the blade, the matter of the 

 air and the matter of the atmosphere are drawn upon, 

 and the plant augments in size. We have in succession 

 the stalk, the ear, the full corn in the ear ; the cycle of 

 molecular action being completed by the production of 

 grains, similar to that with which the process began. 



Now there is nothing in this process which neces- 

 sarily eludes the conceptive or imagining power of the 

 human mind. An intellect the same in kind as our 

 own would, if only sufficiently expanded, be able to 

 follow the whole process from beginning to end. It 



Q 2 



