SCIENCE AND HER INTERESTS. 



357 



I have ventured to speculate concerning vital power 

 simply because I find it impossible to account for the 

 ordinary universal life phenomena without the aid of an 

 hypothesis of the kind. I ask by what means the matter 

 of a living being is made to assume certain definite relations 

 in order that a fixed purpose may be carried out at a distant 

 period of time ? It is asserted confidently that all is due to 



terest, or sympathy, than the utterances of those who have again 

 repeated let us hope for the very last time, at the meeting of the 

 British Association, some of the silly platitudes oddly supposed to be 

 likely to persuade people of intelligence that they ought to give up their 

 belief in Omnipotence and Design. 



" He regarded such contrivances, not as evidence of an Almighty 

 power, but rather as the efforts of a tinker to mend the errors of his 

 own work." . . . "It was, he contended, worse than useless ; and he 

 said that such a work would not be accepted at the hands of a trades- 

 man." . , . " Could we put down to the Almighty what we would 

 not take from the hands of a human being?" 



" Concurred as to the uselessness of the vermiform appendage. 



. . . The actions of the tissues were not intelligent, for were they so, 

 in this case, the development would go the length of getting rid of this 

 vermiform appendix." 



" Dr. said the doctrine enunciated was now almost universally 



accepted by scientific men competent to form a judgment. That doc- 

 trine was quite consistent with the existence of a guiding Intelligence." 

 . . . "The two doctrines actually supported one another." . . . "If 

 bodily structures were not useful, the animals could not exist." 



"Whales might be said to carry rudimentary hind-legs in their 

 pockets." . . . " The old notion was a blunder." . . . "Some doc- 

 trine of evolution must be true." . . . " These things were far better 

 understood in Germany !" Times report, September 25,. 1873. 



The Athetuzum tells us that "a medical man was allowed to read 

 what was little better than an advertisement of himself ;" and remarks 

 that " If men of achieved position, whose business it is to support the in- 

 terests of science, have found it not worth their white to continue to attend 

 the Annual Scientific Congress, it is certain that the whole thing ivill 

 very soon (!) sink into deserved contempt !" Athenaum, October 4, 1873. 



