BETWEEN DEAD AND LIVING. 



So long as the advocates of the physical doctrine of life 

 contented themselves with ridiculing " vitality " as a fiction 

 and a myth, because it could not be made evident to the 

 senses, measured or weighed, or proved scientifically to 

 exist, their position was not easily assailed ; but now when 

 they assert dogmatically that vital force is only a form or 

 mode of ordinary motion, they are bound to show that the 

 assertion rests upon evidence, or it will be regarded by 

 thoughtful men as one of a large number of fanciful hypo- 

 theses, advocated only by the teachers and expounders of 

 dogmatic science, which, although pretentious and autho- 

 ritative, must ever be intolerant and unprogressive. 



As a working physiologist, desiring to see and promote to 

 the utmost, real advance in this department of science, I 

 consider it right to oppose as strongly as I can the practice 

 pursued by some scientific authorities in the present day, 

 and especially in this country, of reiterating the assertion 

 that all the phenomena of living beings are to be accounted 

 for by ordinary force. Nothing can retard true progress 

 more than exaggerated statements with reference to advance 

 in any special direction. The substitution of intense and 

 positive language for quiet proof, merely indicates bias, if 

 not prejudice, in favour of views that cannot be supported 

 by facts. I have already stated that the doctrine does not 

 rest upon sound evidence. Instead of objections being 

 answered, or the challenge to consider the matter in detail 

 being accepted, we are told that the " tendency of modern 

 science is towards this" apparently much-desired "end, 

 and that the day is not far distant when the artificial pro- 

 duction of living matter will be rendered possible," and so 

 forth \ 



