190 FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 



view of the introduction of life, I do not know. But 

 the anthropomorphism, which it seemed his object to 

 set aside, is as firmly associated with the creation of a 

 few forms as with the creation of a multitude. We 

 need clearness and thoroughness here. Two courses 

 and two only are possible. Either let us open our doors 

 freely to the conception of creative acts, or abandoning 

 them, let us radically change our notions of Matter. 

 If we look at matter as pictured by Democritus, and as 

 defined for generations in our scientific text-books, the 

 notion of conscious life coming out of it cannot be 

 formed by the mind. The argument placed in the 

 mouth of Bishop Butler suffices, in my opinion, to 

 crush all such materialism as this. Those, however, 

 who framed these definitions of matter were but partial 

 students. They were not biologists, but mathema- 

 ticians whose labours referred only to such accidents 

 and properties of matter as could be expressed in their 

 formulae. Their science was mechanical science, not 

 the science of life. With matter in its wholeness they 

 never dealt; and, denuded by their imperfect defini- 

 tions, ' the gentle mother of all ' became the object of 

 her children's dread. Let us reverently, but honestly, 

 look the question in the face. Divorced from matter, 

 where is life? Whatever our faith may say, our knowl- 

 edge shows them to be indissolubly joined. Every 

 meal we eat, and every cup we drink, illustrates the 

 mysterious control of Mind by Matter. 



On tracing the line of life backwards, we see it ap- 

 proaching more and more to what we call the purely 

 physical condition. We come at length to those or- 

 ganisms which I have compared to drops of oil sus- 

 pended in a mixture of alcohol and water. We reach 

 the protogenes of Haeckel, in which we have ' a type 

 distinguishable from a fragment of albumen only by its 



