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cardinal point, that the difference between a living thing and the same thing 

 when it is dead, which difference seems to ordinary comprehension so very 

 remarkable as to deserve to be called absolute and insurmountable, is but 

 a difference in degree. The evidence in support of various conjectures con- 

 cerning changes in the properties of material particles and alterations in the 

 character and properties of living forms is also supposed to be forthcoming 

 at some future time. Upon the fanciful basis thus constructed out of what 

 may be discovered in the time to come is raised a strange and grotesque 

 superstructure of philosophical speculation, contradiction, and inconsistency, 

 perhaps the most curious ever presented for the acceptance and admiration 

 of mankind. Amid all the vagaries of the intellect are to be noticed the 

 most ardent belief in and superstitious reverence for future hypothetical 

 revelations. 



Propositions which from their very nature must depend upon faith are 

 rejected by the disciples of the new philosophy as unworthy of belief 

 because they cannot be proved by observation, or put to the test of experi- 

 ment, or the facts on which they rest be rendered evident to the sense of 

 touch, sight, or hearing. On the other hand, things that have not been 

 proved by observation, but which are within the limits of observation, 

 which have not been demonstrated, but which would have been susceptible 

 of demonstration had they really existed, are to be believed and at once 

 accepted as literally true, because it has been affirmed by scientific teachers, 

 who cannot possibly err, that all things and all phenomena are unquestion- 

 ably due to the operation of laws of matter about to be discovered, 

 and because certain views concerning things in general, and living things in 

 particular, have been accepted by the established intellectual authority of 

 the time, from whose decision there is no appeal. 



The vague and most unsatisfactory hypotheses which are often accepted 

 and believed in as if they were well-ascertained truths of science would have 

 but little chance of acceptance but for the doubt and confusion of thought 

 concerning fundamental principles of religion and philosophy which now 

 prevail, and which, indeed, may be said to characterise the time in which we 

 live. An incomprehensible yearning after breadth of view and an inexpli- 

 cable terror of being accused of being bigoted and narrow-minded seem to 

 paralyse the judgment and render some of the most intelligent amongst us 

 infatuated victims of materialistic inspiration. The longing for ever-increasing 

 breadth of view has led to the acceptance and teaching of doctrines which are 

 contradictory and in some instances mutually exclusive. Conclusions which 

 involve the denial of the existence of God. are not unfrequently accepted at 

 this time by persons who profess to believe the Christian faith. Incom- 

 patible and contradictory principles have been made to appear to harmonise 

 by completely altering the meaning of the words employed, and it is 

 doubtful whether any of the original meaning attached to certain most 

 important words is now left. The word "God" is often used as if its whole 

 meaning was comprised in creative power or first cause ; and, as to the word 

 " Christianity," its meaning has been modified in so many ways of late that 



