PROFESSOR VIRCHOW AND EVOLUTION 395 



But the Book of Genesis has no voice in scientific ques- 

 tions. It is a poem, not a scientific treatise. In the former 

 aspect it is forever beautiful; in the latter it has been, 

 and it will continue to be, purely obstructive and hurt- 

 ful." My agreement with Professor Knight extends still 

 further. "Does the vital," he asks, "proceed by a still 

 remoter development from the non-vital? Or was it cre- 

 ated by a fiat of volition? Or" — and here he emphasizes 

 his question — "Aas it always existed in some form or other 

 as an eternal constituent of the universe? I do not see," 

 he replies, "how we can escape from the last alternative." 

 With the whole force of my conviction I say, Nor do 1, 

 though our modes of regarding the "eternal constituent" 

 may not be the same. 



When matter was defined by Descartes, he deliberately 

 excluded the idea of force or motion from its attributes 

 and from his definition. Extension only was taken into 

 account. And, inasmuch as the impotence of matter to 

 generate motion was assumed, its observed motions were 

 referred to an external cause. God, resident outside of 

 matter, gave the impulse. In this connection the argu- 

 ment in Young's "Night Thoughts" will occur to most 

 readers : 



"Wlio Motion foreign to the smallest grain 

 ShoJ; through vast masses of enormous weight? 

 Who bid brute Matter's restive lump assume 

 Such various forms, and gave it wings to fly? 



Against this notion of Descartes the great deist John To- 

 land, whose ashes lie unmarked in Putney Churchyard, 

 strenuously contended. He affirmed motion to be an in- 

 herent attribute of matter — that no portion of matter was 

 at rest, and that even the most quiescent solids were ani- 



