I04 PHYSICISTS NEVER ERR. 



accept the conclusions upon which he desired they should 

 rely, it would be easy for him to add to his arguments a little 

 literary terrorism. He might remark with effect that, " An 

 argument like the above must indeed be convincing to any- 

 one who possesses any mind at all. He who hesitated to 

 accept such a demonstration, would thereby prove himself 

 to be foolish, or savage, or both ;" and so forth, the me- 

 taphors being varied from time to time to suit the circum- 

 stances of each particular case. 



Confident writers like Mr. Huxley, who deal largely in 

 vague assertions, sometimes express themselves as if they 

 supposed that opponents were really attempting to extort 

 from them a confession that they had been mistaken in 

 some of the views they had pressed with such enthusiastic 

 vehemence. There could not be a greater mistake. I do 

 not believe that any one who has advanced any objections to 

 the doctrines criticised in this work, has the faintest hope of 

 eliciting an acknowledgment upon the part of any physical 

 philosopher, that the slightest mistake has ever been made 

 by a disciple of the material philosophy. It is scarcely 

 conceivable that even Dr. Stirling, or any logician, should 

 succeed in convincing Mr. Huxley, that refutation of any 

 of the extraordinary dogmas to which he has committed 

 himself was possible even in thought ; but, at the same 

 time, it is perhaps scarcely probable, that everyone, or 

 nearly everyone, is ready to accept Mr. Huxley's doctrines, 

 simply because Mr. Huxley asserts them to be the only 

 views that satisfy him, and the only conclusions he can 

 accept. 



To return to the consideration of the objections to the 

 comparison instituted between water and protoplasm, as 



