MATTER AND FORCE 79 



known and avowed that the physical philosopher, as 

 such, must be a pure materialist. His inquiries deal 

 with matter and force, and with them alone. And 

 whatever be the forms which matter and force assume, 

 whether in the organic world or the inorganic, whether 

 in the coal-beds and forests of the earth, or in the brains 

 and muscles of men, the physical philosopher will make 

 good his right to investigate them. It is perfectly vain 

 to attempt to stop inquiry in this direction. Depend 

 upon it, if a chemist, by bringing the proper materials 

 together in a retort or crucible, could make a baby, he 

 would do it. There is no law, moral or physical, forbid- 

 ding him to do it. At the present moment there are, 

 no doubt, persons experimenting on the possibility of 

 producing what we call life out of inorganic materials. 

 Let them pursue their studies in peace; it is only by 

 such trials that they will learn the limits of their own 

 powers and the operation of the laws of matter and 

 force. 



But while thus making the largest demand for free- 

 dom of investigation while I consider science to be alike 

 powerful as an instrument of intellectual culture and as a 

 ministrant to the material wants of men; if you ask me 

 whether it has solved, or is likely in our day to solve, 

 the problem of this universe, I must shake my head in 

 doubt. You remember the first Napoleon's question, 

 when the savans who accompanied him to Egypt dis- 

 cussed in his presence the origin of the universe, and 

 solved it to their own apparent satisfaction. He looked 

 aloft to the starry heavens, and said, "It is all very well, 

 gentlemen; but who made these?" That question still 

 remains unanswered, and science makes no attempt to 



