108 SELECTED ESSAYS FROM LAY SERMONS 



ited by water are its properties, so are those presented by 

 protoplasm, living or dead, its properties. 



If the properties of water may be properly said to result 

 from the nature and disposition of its component molecules, 

 I can find no intelligible ground for refusing to say that the 

 properties of protoplasm result from the nature and dis- 

 position of its molecules. 



But I bid you beware that, in accepting these conclusions, 

 you are placing your feet on the first rung of a ladder which, 

 in most people's estimation, is the reverse of Jacob's, and 

 leads to the antipodes of heaven. It may seem a small 

 thing to admit that the dull vital actions of a fungus, or a 

 foraminifer, are the properties of their protoplasm, and are 

 the direct results of the nature of the matter of which they 

 are composed. But if, as I have endeavoured to prove to 

 you, their protoplasm is essentially identical with, and most 

 readily converted into, that of any animal, I can discover 

 no logical halting-place between the admission that such is 

 the case, and the further concession that all vital action may, 

 with equal propriety, be said to be the result of the molec- 

 ular forces of the protoplasm which displays it. And if so, 

 it must be true, in the same sense and to the same extent, 

 that the thoughts to which I am now giving utterance, and 

 your thoughts regarding them, are the expression of molec- 

 ular changes in that matter of life which is the source of 

 our other vital phenomena. 



Past experience leads me to be tolerably certain that, when 

 the propositions I have just placed before you are accessible 

 to public comment and criticism, they will be condemned by 

 many zealous persons, and perhaps by some few of the wise 

 and thoughtful. I should not wonder if "gross and brutal 

 materialism" were the mildest phrase applied to them in 

 certain quarters. And, most undoubtedly, the terms of the 



