192 FKAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 



man of science a desire stronger than the wish to have 

 his beliefs upheld; namely, the desire to have them 

 true. And this stronger wish causes him to reject the 

 most plausible support, if he has reason to suspect that 

 it is vitiated by error. Those to whom I refer as hav- 

 ing studied this question, believing the evidence of- 

 fered in favour of ' spontaneous generation } to be thus 

 vitiated, cannot accept it. They know full well that 

 the chemist now prepares from inorganic matter a vast 

 array of substances, which were some time ago regarded 

 as the sole products of vitality. They are intimately 

 acquainted with the structural power of matter, as 

 evidenced in the phenomena of crystallisation. They 

 can justify scientifically their belief in its potency, 

 under the proper conditions, to produce organisms. 

 But, in reply to your question, they will frankly admit 

 their inability to point to any satisfactory experimental 

 proof that life can be developed, save from demon- 

 strable antecedent life. As already indicated, they 

 draw the line from the highest organisms through 

 lower ones down to the lowest; and it is the pro- 

 longation of this line by the intellect, beyond the range 

 of the senses, that leads them to the conclusion which 

 Bruno so boldly enunciated.* 



The ' materialism ' here professed may be vastly 

 different from what you suppose, and I therefore crave 

 your gracious patience to the end. ' The question of 

 an external world,' says J. S. Mill, ' is the great battle- 

 ground of metaphysics.'! Mr. Mill himself reduces 

 external phenomena to ( possibilities of sensation.' 

 Kant, as we have seen, made time and space ' forms ' 

 of our own intuitions. Fichte, having first by the in- 

 exorable logic of his understanding proved himself to 



* Bruno was a ' Pantheist,' not an ' Atheist ' or a ' Materialist.' 

 f ' Examination of Hamilton,' p. 154. 



