THE TENDENCIES OF THOUGHT. 



been arrived at, and which have been made so very popular, 

 rest upon facts of observation and experiment, I for one 

 should be ready to accept physical causation as of universal 

 application, no matter what changes in opinions, beliefs, 

 and cherished hopes that acceptance might necessitate. 

 But few who study the phenomena of living things feel 

 satisfied that the views in question rest upon any basis more 

 solid than hosts of conjectural hypotheses which are always 

 being evolved from fertile imaginations, and which are no 

 more to be relied upon than the tendencies of thought. I 

 ask that the exact way may be pointed out in which the 

 new or old facts really afford support to the physical 

 doctrine of life. I require to be furnished with some- 

 thing more definite to influence my judgment than what is 

 called the "tendency" of investigation, of thought, or of 

 opinion ; for this ever-flowing " tendency " when carefully 

 traced is discovered to be a rill which flows from the imagi- 

 nations of some eminently confident philosophers who have 

 agreed that in themselves is a fountain of truth, and that 

 no one shall be allowed to drink of any intellectual stream 

 save that which tends from them. But the bounds of 

 natural knowledge are to be extended only by patient 

 study, earnest work, careful observation, and well-devised 

 experiment, not by drinking in faith at the intellectual well 

 which happens to be in fashion during one particular 

 season. 



Disclaiming authority of every kind, the adherents of 

 the new school of opinion profess to influence others and to 

 be influenced themselves by reason alone. But with strange 

 inconsistency, they invoke " the tendency of investigation " 

 and the " spirit of modern thought," in favour of doctrines 



