8 Imperfect Analogies. CHAP. 



though Professor Drummond's analogy between 

 natural and spiritual Biogenesis is impressive and 

 instructive, it is by no means a close analogy ; yet 

 his special claim is to establish not analogies but 

 identities of law. The analogy between the weed 

 or the worm deriving natural life from its own 

 ancestors, and man deriving spiritual life from the 

 Divine Source of all life, however real, is certainly 

 but remote : it is one of those analogies of which 

 nature is full, which hold good only to a certain 

 extent and in certain relations. In applying this 

 analogy, moreover, Professor Drummond appears to 

 have been led into inaccuracy of thought by con- 

 founding two senses of the word Death. Its proper 

 meaning is the state of that which has been living, 

 and is so no longer. But it is also used in the sense 

 of merely lifeless : in this sense we speak of " mere 

 dead matter." Now, this secondary sense of the 

 word ought to have no place in a scientific treatise. 

 It would be inaccurate to use the word immoral 

 as a synonym of not moral, and to call the love of 

 life an immoral agency because it does not belong 

 to the moral nature ; and the inaccuracy is as great 

 when Professor Drummond uses, as he constantly 

 does, the same word, death, for the state of a soul 

 which is "dead in trespasses and sins," and for the 

 state of a soul which is not spiritually living only 

 because it has not yet been breathed upon by the 

 Life-giving Spirit. In the former case, sin, being 

 full-grown, has brought forth its legitimate offspring, 



