SUPPLEMENT 253 



but rather against those who like Professor Plate 

 yield to the tendency of modern thought to assign 

 a natural and mechanical origin to everything, and 

 allow their superficial kind of philosophy to inspire 

 them with the hope of avoiding such a recognition. 



This statement applies more especially to the 

 first origin of a living creature out of inorganic 

 matter. Plate s arguments in favour of spontaneous 

 generation are rejected by Dr. Senff as having no 

 more value than Haeckel s. I am sorry to be 

 obliged to follow the Jesuit, rather than the professor 

 of zoology, on the point under discussion. 



Dr. Senff regards the alleged transitions between 

 what is inorganic and what possesses life as merely 

 external analogies, that cannot prove any essential 

 equality between them. Professor Plate is as 

 little able, as any one else, to bring forward a single 

 case, in which it is certain that the line dividing the 

 inorganic from the living has given place to con 

 tinuity uniting them. 



* What, then, is the use of juggling with analogies 

 and parallels, that prove nothing, but only dazzle 

 an audience which is eager to applaud, and neither 

 disposed to nor capable of any exact examination ? 

 The subject is too serious and too important to be 

 dealt with in this way, which is, after all. not true 

 science, but very fine dogmatism on the part of 

 students of natural science. 



The critic goes on to consider the relation in which 

 scientific research stands to metaphysics. Father 



