394 FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 



grandeur and the littleness of man the vastness of his 

 range in some respects and directions, and his power- 

 lessness to take a single step in others. In 1868, he- 

 fore the Mathematical and Physical Section of the 

 British Association, then assembled at Norwich, I repeat 

 the same well-worn note: 



1 In thus affirming the growth of the human body 

 to be mechanical, and thought as exercised by us to have 

 its correlative in the physics of the brain, the position 

 of the " materialist," as far as that position is tenable, is 

 stated. I think the materialist will be able finally to 

 maintain this position against all attacks, but I do not 

 think he can pass beyond it. The problem of the con- 

 nection of body and soul is as insoluble in its modern 

 form as it was in the pre-scientific ages. Phosphorus 

 is a constituent of the human brain, and a trenchant 

 German writer has exclaimed, " Ohne Phosphor kem 

 gedanke! " That may or may not be the case; but, 

 even if we knew it to be the case, the knowledge would 

 not lighten our darkness. On both sides of the zone 

 here assigned to the materialist, he is equally helpless. 

 If you ask him whence is this " matter " of which we 

 have been discoursing who or what divided it into 

 molecules, and impressed upon them this necessity of 

 running into organic forms he has no answer. Sci- 

 ence is also mute in regard to such questions. But if 

 the materialist is confounded and science is rendered 

 dumb, who else is prepared with an answer? Let us 

 lower our heads and acknowledge our ignorance, priest 

 and philosopher, one and all.' 



The roll of echoes which succeeded the Lecture de- 

 livered by Professor Virchow at Munich on September 

 22, 1877, was long and loud. The ' Times ' published a 

 nearly full translation of the lecture, and it was eagerly 



