XI PHENOMENA OF ORGANIC NATURE 359 



phenomena, and especially all questions relating 

 to the origin of vital phenomena, are questions 

 quite apart from the ordinary run of inquiry, and 

 are, by their very nature, placed out of our reach. 

 They say that all these phenomena originated 

 miraculously, or in some way totally different from 

 the ordinary course of nature, and that therefore 

 they conceive it to be futile, not to say pre- 

 sumptuous, to attempt to inquire into them. 



To such sincere and earnest persons, I would 

 only say, that a question of this kind is not to be 

 shelved upon theoretical or speculative grounds. 

 You may remember the story of the Sophist who 

 demonstrated to Diogenes in the most complete 

 and satisfactory manner that he could not walk ; 

 that, in fact, all motion was an impossibility ; and 

 that Diogenes refuted him by simply getting up 

 and walking round his tub. So, in the same way, 

 the man of science replies to objections of this 

 kind, by simply getting up and walking onward, 

 and showing what science has done and is doing 

 by pointing to that immense mass of facts 

 which have been ascertained as systematised 

 under the forms of the great doctrines of morpho- 

 logy, of development, of distribution, and the 

 like. He sees an enormous mass of facts and laws 

 relating to organic beings, which stand on the 

 same good sound foundation as every other natural 

 law. With this mass of facts and laws before us, 

 therefore, seeing that, as far as organic matters 



