258 Thomas Henry Muxley 



metals. Tlie advance of chemical science led to defin- 

 ite conceptions of the differences between compounds 

 and elementarj- bodies, and of the independence of 

 these elements. The methods and reasoning of the 

 alchemists became absurd, and no one would attempt 

 seriously to transmute the metals on their lines. These 

 advances, however, do not give us the right to assume 

 that the elements are absolutely independent, and that 

 transmutation is therefore impossible. Some of the 

 most recent progress in chemistry has opened up the 

 suggestion that the elements themselves are differ- 

 ent combinations of a common substance. Huxley 

 applied this particular argument to the miracle at the 

 marriage of Cana. 



"You are quite mistaken in supposing that anybody who is 

 acquainted with the possibilities of physical science will under- 

 take categorically to deny that water may be turned into wine. 

 Many very competent judges are inclined to think that the 

 bodies which we have hitherto regarded as elementary are 

 really composite arrangements of the particles of a uniform 

 primitive matter. Supposing that view to be correct, there 

 would be no more theoretical difficulty about turning water 

 into alcohol, ethereal and colouring matters, than there is, at 

 this present moment, any practical difficulty in working other 

 such miracles; as when we turn sugar into alcohol, carbonic 

 acid, glycerine, and succinic acid ; or transmute gas-refuse 

 into perfumes rarer than musk and dyes richer than Tyrian 

 purple." 



Unless we make the unscientific and preposterous 

 assumption that our present knowledge of nature and 

 of natural forces is absolute and complete, it is un- 

 scientific and illogical to declare at once that any 

 supposed events could not have happened merely 

 because they seem to have contradicted so-called 

 natural laws. 



