15 



kind, and the facts of nature are too often distorted and made 

 to bend to the requirements of artificial and ridiculous creeds 

 resting on authority only. 



Thoughtful persons must be surprised that the constant 

 repetition, without any attempt at proof, of such assertions as, 

 that all living things are mechanisms, mere machines, and 

 that in the living matter of their bodies there is molecular 

 machinery does not of itself lead to the exposure of the 

 extreme weakness of the materialistic view. For is it reasonable 

 to suppose that the ardent advocates of materialistic doctrine 

 would be content with vain repetitions if they could explain 

 and illustrate their assertions so as to make them intelligible ? 

 Would they not offer remarks concerning the sort of machinery 

 they say exists ? Would they not tell us how it appeared, some- 

 thing about its structure, the way in which it was put together, 

 the mode in which it was dissolved and renovated, the means 

 by which it was made 'to act ? Would they not have something 

 to suggest concerning the forces or powers by which the work- 

 ing of the machinery was directed, and the probable source of 

 these, as well as their ultimate fate ? Would they not, if they 

 could have done so, have given diagrams of the molecular 

 machinery of their imagination for the instruction and edi- 

 fication of their less learned and weaker brethren ? But 

 instead of this, all that men of this persuasion' seem able 

 to do is to repeat again and again the same monstrous 

 assertions, That living matter and non-living matter differ 

 only in degree, and that the action of living matter is 

 due to molecular machinery. But besides giving to non- 

 living matter molecular machinery, the capacities and powers 

 which the living alone possesses are sometimes given to the 

 molecules of inorganic matter. Professor Huxley, for example, 

 goes so far as to affirm that these inorganic molecules have 

 the power of " sensitively adjusting themselves." Indeed, 

 one would not be surprised if it were discovered that certain 

 molecules which had acquired advantages over others, arranged 

 themselves in such positions as would enable them most 

 successfully to jostle weaker molecules and take the places 

 they were the fittest to occupy. 



That such vague notions should be accepted by any but a 

 few enthusiasts who knew nothing of the facts would be sur- 

 prising; but that such very imperfectly considered conclusions 

 should be accepted by many and become really popular, indi- 

 cates that there is somehow a demand for them a desire or 

 determination on the part of people to receive them a longing 

 to believe them, and a conviction that they will be proved to 

 be true a determination to rely upon mere authoritative 



