PROFESSOR VIROHOW AND EVOLUTION. 641 
body, instead of replacing others, and thus renewing a 
pre-existing form, to be gathered first-hand from nature, 
and placed in the exact relative positions which they occupy 
in the body. Supposing them to have the same forces and 
distribution of forces, the same motions and distribution 
of motions would this organized concourse of molecules 
stand before us as a sentient, thinking being? There 
seems no valid reason to assume that it would not. Or 
supposing a planet carved from the sun, set spinning round 
an axis, and sent revolving round the sun at a distance 
equal to that of our earth, would one consequence of the 
refrigeration of the mass be the development of organic 
forms? I lean to the affirmative." This is plain speaking, 
but it is without " dogmatism." An opinion is ex- 
pressed, a belief, a leaning not an established "doc- 
trine." 
The burden of my writings in this connection is as 
much a recognition of the weakuess of science as an 
assertion of its strength. In 1867, I told the workingmen 
of Dundee that while making the largest demand for free- 
dom of investigation; while considering science to be alike 
powerful as an instrument of intellectual culture, and as a 
ministrant to the material wants of men; if asked whether 
science has solved, or is likely in our day to solve, " the 
problem of the universe," I must shake my head in doubt. 
I compare the mind of man to a musical instrument with a 
certain range of notes, beyond which in both directions 
exists infinite silence. The phenomena of matter and 
force come within our intellectual range; but behind, and 
above, and around us the real mystery of the universe lies 
unsolved, and, as far as we are concerned, is incapable of 
solution. 
" While refreshing my mind on these old themes I appear 
to myself as a person possessing one idea, which so over- 
masters him that he is never weary of repeating it. That 
idea is the polar conception of the grandeur and the little- 
ness of man the vastness of his range in some respects and 
directions, and his powerlessness to take a single step in 
others, in 18G8. before the Mathematical and Physical 
Section of the British Association, then assembled at 
Norwich, I repeat the same well-worn note: 
"In thus affirming the growth of the human body to be 
mechanical, and thought as exercised by us to have its 
