FORM NE VER RESUL TS FROM FORCE. 2 1 



had no case at all. Physico-chemical dogmatizing of this 

 kind has now been going on for nearly twenty years. It 

 has done nothing towards unravelling the mysteries of life 

 which meet an honest student of nature at every turn, and 

 it has led a number of idle people to believe that we really 

 know a great deal more about nature than we do know. 



It is absurd to affirm that the living body is a machine, 

 which does work only so long as it is supplied with fuel, 

 because it certainly lived before any machinery was formed 

 in it. Every living thing, say certain chemists and phy- 

 sicists, " works by force, and everything exhibits force. 

 There is no power in nature to form but force, therefore 

 everything must be formed by force," and form is, of course, 

 a result of force. But can assertions be more monstrous than 

 these ? They are in truth devoid of any force. But a belief 

 in such doctrines has led believers to advance doctrines 

 still more extraordinary, and to attack those who entertain 

 different opinions in a manner which seems as unfair and 

 useless as it is unjustifiable. For instance, what advan- 

 tage can Dr. Bence Jones hope to gain for the cause he has 

 at heart by such unpleasant comments as the following? 

 " The spiritualists," he says, " must leave the foundations of 

 natural knowledge to those who can see no reason for faith 

 in witches, ghosts, transmutations, and transmigrations." 

 Can Dr. B. Jones really mean to insinuate that those whom 

 he calls spiritualists believe in ghosts, &c. ? And what is the 

 meaning of the mind resting satisfied "with an imponder- 

 able gaseous or liquid matter diffused through living liquids, 

 or temporarily attached to more solid granular matter?" 

 Imponderable matter in living liquid or attached to granular 

 matter ! A little further on we have something about 



