134 THE FOUNDATIONS OF ZOOLOGY 



assure me that a being so reasonable as I am known to be will 

 not ask anything that might not have been expected, I thank him 

 for the compliment ; for I try to be a reasonable creature. But if 

 he assert that his confidence in my thoughts and actions proves 

 that they are necessary ^ I must ask him how he knows ; for I fail 

 to see how proof that an event is mechanical and neither less nor 

 more than might have been expected, shows that it is necessary ; 

 nor can I see any more reason why my confidence in my free- 

 dom proves that my acts are arbitrary. 



The man of science quarrels with no man's opinions; but he 

 will not be held responsible for perplexities which are none of his 

 making. 



I am unable to share the dread of the evolutionist that the 

 basis of science may be destroyed if we do not admit that all 

 nature must be determinate. All agree that the past is determi- 

 nate, so far as the word means anything to us, and there seems 

 to be valid ground for the belief that every part of the material 

 universe contains a permanent record of every change which has 

 ever occurred in any part. 



'* If on a cold polished metal, as a new razor, any object, such 

 as a wafer, be laid, and the metal be breathed upon, and, when 

 the moisture has had time to disappear, the wafer be thrown off, 

 though now the most critical inspection of the polished surface 

 can discern no trace of any form, if we breathe once more upon it, 

 a spectral image of the wafer comes plainly into view ; and this 

 may be done again and again. Nay, more, if the polished metal 

 be carefully put aside, where nothing can deteriorate its surface, 

 and be kept so for many months, on breathing upon it again, the 

 shadowy form emerges. A shadow never falls upon a wall with- 

 out leaving thereupon a permanent trace, a trace which might be 

 made visible by resorting to proper processes. Upon the walls of 

 our most private apartments, where we think the eye of intrusion 

 is altogether shut out, and our retirement can never be profaned, 

 there exist the vestiges of all our acts."^ 



Babbage has pointed out ( " Ninth Bridgewater Treatise " pp. 

 1 1 3-1 1 5) "that if we had power to follow and detect the minutest 

 effects of any disturbance, each particle of existing matter would fur- 



1 Draper, " Conflict of Science and Religion." 



