PROFESSOR VIRCHOW AND EVOLUTION. fl 
other influential quarters a similar spirit is at work. In a 
remarkable article published by Professor Knight of St. 
Andrews in the September number of the Nineteenth 
Century, amid other free utterances, we have this one: 
" If matter is not eternal, its first emergence into being is 
a miracle beside which all others dwindle into absolute 
insignificance. But, as has often been pointed out, the 
process is unthinkable; the sudden apocalypse of a material 
world out of blank nonentity cannot be imagined;* its 
emergence into order out of chaos when 'without form 
and void " of life, is merely a poetic rendering of the doc- 
trine of its slow evolution.' These are all bold words to 
be spoken before the moral philosophy class of a Scotch 
university, while those I have underlined show a remark- 
able freedom of dealing with the sacred text. They repeat 
in terser language what 1 ventured to utter four years ago 
regarding the Book of Genesis. " Profoundly interesting 
and indeed pathetic to me are those attempts of the opening 
mind of man to appease its hunger for a Cause. But the 
Book of Genesis has no voice in scientific questions. Jtt.i$ 
a poem, not a scientific treatise. In the former aspect it is 
forever beautiful; in the latter it has been, and it will 
continue to be, purely obstructive and hurtful." My agree- 
ment with Professor Knight extends still further. " Does 
the vital," he asks^" proceed by a still remoter develop- 
ment from the non-vital? '"Or was it created by a fiat of 
volition ?Q.JOr" and here he emphasizes his question 
/ " has it always existed in some form or other as an eternal 
constituent of the universe? I do not see," he replies, 
" how we can escape from the last alternative." With the 
whole force of my conviction I say, Nor do I, though our 
modes of regarding the ''eternal constituent" may not be 
the same. 
When matter was defined by Descartes, he deliber- 
ately excluded the idea of force or motion from its attri- 
butes and from his definition. Extension only was taken 
into account. And, inasmuch as the impotence of matter 
to generate motion was assumed, its observed motions 
were referred to an external cause. God, resident outside 
of matter, gave the impulse. In this connection the 
* Professor Knight will have to reckon with the English marriage 
service, one of whose collects begins thus: "O God, who by thy 
mighty power hast made all things of nothing." 
