54 THE NATURE OF MATTER 



higher compounds that are known as organic (as until lately 

 they were only produced by organisms), no one raises the 

 least doubt that the complex aggregate has generated the 

 new qualities or combined the elemental energies into them. 

 But when oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, carbon, and sulphur 

 unite in a supremely complex aggregate, and certain very 

 distinctive properties appear, we are told they did not 

 generate the new properties, but some mystic entity came in 

 from another world and guided their movements. And 

 if Mr. Burke's radiobes prove to be genuine abiogenetic 

 living things, Sir Oliver Lodge holds that he has only pre- 

 pared " a vehicle " for the manifestation of life. 



This is a clear departure from scientific reasoning in the 

 interest of a spiritist theory that has been set up on other 

 grounds. I do not say, as Mr. Mallock does, on " unscien- 

 tific grounds "; but, after all, those other grounds are not indi- 

 cated in this work, and we must ignore them. The scientific 

 procedure is plain. Seeing that, as Sir Oliver Lodge so 

 finely indicates, we are to expect " fresh properties " in the 

 new aggregate, and seeing that the "fresh properties " really 

 emerge, it is idle to imagine the sudden appearance of a 

 mystic principle. It is not in the least required that we 

 show, step by step, how the linking and fusing of the old 

 properties generated the new. Until some feature in the 

 new properties is pointed out that clearly could not be due 

 to the combination itself and that will be a Sisyphean task 

 for the man who thinks an aggregate may produce pro- 

 perties different " in kind, not merely in degree," from the 

 old we are content with our material factors. 



