384 FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 



undoubtedly a modification of human flesh, and the 

 persons who fed upon them were as undoubtedly, in 

 part, a more remote modification of the same substance. 

 I figured the self-same molecules as belonging first to 

 one body and afterwards to a different one, and I asked 

 myself how two bodies so related could possibly arrange 

 their claims at the day of resurrection. The scattered 

 parts of each were to be reassembled and set as they 

 were. But if handed over to the one, how could they 

 possibly enter into the composition of the other ? 

 Omnipotence itself, I concluded, could not reconcile 

 the contradiction. Thus the plank which Blair's me- 

 chanical theory of the resurrection brought momentarily 

 into sight, disappeared, and I was again cast abroad on 

 the waste ocean of speculation. 



At the same time I could by no means get rid of the 

 idea that the aspects of nature and the consciousness of 

 man implied the operation of a power altogether beyond 

 my grasp an energy the thought of which raised the 

 temperature of the mind, though it refused to accept 

 shape, personal or otherwise, from the intellect. Perhaps 

 the able critics of the ' Saturday Eeview ' are justified 

 in speaking as t^ey sometimes do of Mr. Carlyle. They 

 owe him nothing, and have a right to announce the fact 

 in their own way. I, however, owe him a great deal, 

 and am also in honour bound to acknowledge the debt. 

 Few, perhaps, who are privileged to come into contact 

 with that illustrious man have shown him a sturdier 

 front than I have, or in discussing modern science have 

 more frequently withstood him. But I could see that 

 his contention at bottom always was that the human 

 soul has claims and yearnings which physical science 

 cannot satisfy. England to come will assuredly thank 

 him for his affirmation of the ethical and ideal side of 

 human nature. Be this as it may, at the period now 



