SCIENTIFIC MATERIALISM 91 



those constituents of both for which it has an elective 

 attraction, and permits the other constituent to return to 

 the atmosphere. Thus the architecture is carried on. 

 Forces are active at the root, forces are active in the 

 blade, the matter of the air and the matter of the atmos- 

 phere are drawn upon, and the plant augments in size. 

 We have in succession the stalk, the ear, the full corn 

 in the ear; the cycle of molecular action being completed 

 by the production of grains, similar to that with which 

 the process began. 



Now there is nothing in this process which necessarily 

 eludes the conceptive or imagining power of the human 

 mind. An intellect the same in kind as our own would, 

 if only sufficiently expanded, be able to follow the whole 

 process from beginning to end. It would see every mole- 

 cule placed in its position by the specific attractions and 

 repulsions exerted between it and other molecules, the 

 whole process, and its cons animation, being an instance 

 of the play of molecular force. Given the grain and its 

 environment, with their respective forces, the purely hu- 

 man intellect might, if sufficiently expanded, trace out 

 d priori every step of the process of growth, and, by 

 the application of purely mechanical principles, demon- 

 strate that the cycle must end, as it is seen to end, in the 

 reproduction of forms like that with which it began. A 

 necessity rules here, similar to that which rules the plan- 

 ets in their circuits round the sun. 



You will notice that I am stating the truth strongly, 

 as at the beginning we agreed it should be stated. But 

 I must go still further, and affirm that in the eye of 

 science the animal body is just as much the product 

 of molecular force as the chalk and the ear of corn, or 



