MR. HUXLEVS "ENGINEER." 87 



broken open so as to expose him to view, for no sooner do 

 we enter than he is gone for ever. 



Mr. Huxley's " engineer " is in fact, one of those airy 

 nothings, which have no being in the material philosophy 

 a fiction of the physical imagination a phantom neither 

 matter, nor force, nor fact, nor necessary law belonging 

 not to substance, but to metaphor. Descartes' hydraulic 

 machinery was very imperfect. It required an " engineer." 

 But Mr. Huxley's hydraulic machinery is of a very different 

 character, for it has made itself, turns on and off its own 

 taps, and plays ; is independent of design, superior to order 

 or command, and obeys only inexorable physical law. 



