362 STRAUSS' COMPLAINT. 



to certain matter of the body (bioplasm). These last are 

 absolutely essential to all life. We may therefore say that 

 the functions of our being are of two distinct orders, vital 

 zx\& physical. 



Many writers upon the questions discussed by Strauss 

 have used ambiguous phrases, and the reader is sometimes 

 left in doubt as to the exact inference it is desired that he 

 should draw; and in the writings of the most uncom- 

 promising advocates of materialism, sentences are to be 

 found, which tend to excite in the reader's mind a suspicion 

 whether the writer is himself quite prepared to embrace 

 the doctrine which he evidently desires that his reader 

 should believe to be true. It has been well observed that, 

 "In no part of his writings, perhaps, has Strauss been so 

 effective as where he assails the inconsistency of those who 

 adopt his premises, but decline to follow him to their con- 

 clusions." And in assailing such inconsistency, Strauss is 

 surely right. At least in England scientific premises have 

 been very freely laid down, accepted and taught by men 

 who shrank from stating the conclusions that must un- 

 questionably follow. When others pointed out whither 

 the supposed scientific revelations were leading us, it has 

 been said that they were mistaken, and took an exaggerated 

 view of the matter in question ; that even if it was true our 

 religious convictions would be affected by the new dis- 

 coveries, our religion would not be destroyed, though it 

 might be considerably modified. The Omnipotent need 

 not, it was hinted, be discarded, but only the time of 

 miraculous action moved somewhat farther away from our 

 conception of the present state of things, into a past more 

 remote than the remotest past hitherto conceivable. 



