FORCE GUIDED BY MATTER. 83 



the fiction of vitality, popular teachers may partially suc- 

 ceed in forcing upon the people the acceptance of dogmas 

 about force which are really untenable. The interest is 

 excited by the very forcible and high-sounding terms em- 

 ployed, but the language is often remarkable for vagueness 

 and laxity of expression, and conspicuous for its complete 

 want of precision and clearness of meaning, and the use of 

 terms that too often beg the question under consideration. 



The matter in dispute has, at least as regards my own 

 observations, been actually misrepresented; for i. It has 

 been said that the actions which I have termed vital are 

 really physical and chemical. 2. The actions to which I 

 have restricted the term vital (seep. 86), and which occur 

 in the germinal matter only, have in many instances been 

 completely ignored. 



Force guided by Matter. But although the new schools 

 hold it absurd to suppose that any peculiar power acting 

 from within or from without can influence the changes in 

 matter, or direct its forces, they see no impropriety in at- 

 tributing to matter itself, and to force, guiding and directing, 

 and forming agencies. They transfer to the non-living those 

 active, controlling, and directing powers which have been 

 hitherto considered to be limited to the living world. 

 It is the inorganic molecule, not will, or mind, or power, 

 which governs, arranges, and guides. 



Only recently, Professor Huxley has affirmed that a 

 "particle of jelly" (protoplasm ?) guides forces.* But 



* Mr. Huxley remarks, that to his mind it is a fact of the profound - 

 est significance that "this particle of jelly (!) is capable of guiding 

 physical forces in such a manner as to give rise to those exquisite and 



G 2 



