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would certainly, with far less trouble than they take to enable them to 

 decide concerning questions of far less consequence, succeed in doing so. If, 

 for instance, it is said that a living thing grows like a crystal, surely before 

 the dictum is accepted by any one he would naturally inquire whether the 

 new matter taken up by the living thing was deposited particle by particle 

 upon the surface as in the crystal. Doubt would at once be excited in his 

 mind, for no instance would occur to him in which during growth new 

 matter was superposed upon that which was already there, in the case of a 

 living thing. The nourishment always goes into the inside of a living 

 thing, and is never deposited on its outside, as is the case in the 

 crystal when it increases in size. Would it not also occur to him that the 

 matter of the crystal can be dissolved and crystals formed again and again 

 from the solution, while no living thing can be dissolved at all, much less 

 re -crystallised? Such simple considerations would cause doubt to 

 rise in his mind whether a living thing does grow like a crystal, 

 and the doubt would suggest the expediency of further inquiry. 

 He would require, before he accepted the new doctrines, that the 

 particular points in which the so - called crystal - growth resembled 

 and differed from living-growth should be clearly stated. So far from 

 assenting to the proposition that the growth of a crystal was like the growth 

 of a living thing, he would find that the increase in size of a crystal was 

 not growth at all. So, too, with regard to the likeness said to exist between 

 the living and non-living, the particular living and non-living between which 

 this likeness is supposed to exist, should be pointed out. It is probable 

 that the acceptance of many of the most absurd and unreasonable dogmas 

 is due not so much to a want of power to think as to an indisposition 

 to think, and no doubt acquiescence is promoted by a fear of the con- 

 sequences likely to follow the rejection of, or any opposition to, the 

 said doctrines. He who doubts or opposes is to be numbered with the fools. 

 Nevertheless, I beg of you to consider what you would think of a person who 

 assured you that a watch differed from the iron and brass of which it is 

 made only in degree, and I leave it to you to determine what you ought to 

 think of a philosopher who tries to make you believe that a living thing 

 differs from, the non-living matter of which its body consists in degree only. 

 If at this time you press for reasons in favour of the conjectural unity of 

 the living and non-living, all you will get will be some dictum about 

 primitive nebulosity and chains of causation. Anything like criticism is so 

 disliked by the new Materialist, that he condemns those who differ from 

 him by anticipation, and thus for a time criticism is deferred, and his con- 

 jectures and fancies may find favour ; but that people should be led away 

 so far as to renounce their belief in any form of religion, to deny God, and 

 to abandon their hope of a future state, is marvellous indeed. 



In conclusion, let me commend to you the words of Kant. " Criticism," 

 said he, " alone can strike a blow at the root of Materialism, Fatalism, 

 Atheism, Freethinking, Fanaticism, and Superstition, which are universally 

 injurious." 



