374 SCIENTIFIC SIDE OF THE QUESTION. 



between living and non-living matter, but yet there is no 

 ground for adopting the hypothesis that a multitude of 

 forms of matter, which would establish a gradational ascent 

 from the non-living to the living, has perished without 

 leaving behind any traces of its existence. 



Regarding the question from a scientific point of view 

 only, few will be prepared to accept the proposition that 

 the marvellous endowments possessed by the living matter 

 were conferred, as in a moment, by a special fiat of the 

 Divine, and that the living form which was to be at length 

 evolved from the formless plasma, was from the very first 

 designed to fulfil a particular purpose in the world, every- 

 thing in fact having been foreseen, and prearranged by 

 Intelligence, but in a manner altogether unknown to us, 

 and probably to remain for ever undiscoverable by mortals. 

 He must, however, be strangely constituted who would not 

 prefer such a conclusion, though implying the existence of 

 power and intelligence far beyond anything conceivable to 

 man, than confess his belief in the dogma that the numerous 

 orderly changes in nature were the result of the action and 

 reaction of physical forces, and the organism itself a mere 

 consequence of the concourse of molecules under certain 

 circumstances, nothing being known about the supposed 

 fact of the concourse, nothing about the supposed mole- 

 cules and nothing concerning the circumstances under 

 which they are supposed to have come together. 



No one can give what would be admitted by all to be 

 adequate grounds for his attachment to, or belief in, religion, 

 but it is not so difficult to state exactly why one refuses 

 to respect or acknowledge the belief in materialism, and 

 especially that latest development of it known as the All, 



