MOLECULAR MACHINERY. 



well-earned reputation of a successful advocate of the 

 physical doctrine of life. 



Tyndall tells us very plainly that " molecular forces 

 determine the form which the solar energy will assume. In 

 the one case this energy is so conditioned by its atomic 

 machinery as to result in the formation of a cabbage; in 

 another case it is so conditioned as to result in the formation 

 of an oak. So also as regards the reunion of the carbon and 

 the oxygen the form of this reunion is determined by the 

 molecular machinery through which the combining force 

 acts ; in the one case the action may result in the formation 

 of a man, while in the other it may result in the formation 

 of & grasshopper. The form of the motion depends upon 

 the character of the machinery." (" Heat considered as a 

 mode of Motion." By Dr. Tyndall. Second edition.) Now 

 every one who reads this carefully will, I think, agree with me 

 in the opinion, that absolutely nothing is to be learnt from 

 it. Whole volumes might be written in such a style without 

 conveying any information to the reader's mind. The 

 reader, of course, wants to have interpreted to him what is 

 meant by the " molecular forces," and the nature of the act of 

 "conditioning" and the character of the " atomic machinery." 



The physicist considers it quite unnecessary to tell intel- 

 ligent mechanisms how the wheels, and mills, and hammers, 

 and pile-driving machines, and clocks and watches, and 

 little Swiss birds, were formed. Everybody, in his view, 

 knows something about their origin and formation, and is 

 convinced that they arise in much the same manner as the 

 living thing. But Dr. Tyndall ought to favour us with a 

 description of the atomic machinery he has discovered, or 

 which he assumes to exist, in germinating cabbages, and 



