214 VITALISM AND SCHOLASTICISM 



demands could be made in so many cases; we 

 only indicate that they are there. What we 

 do press is this that when an authority comes 

 forward to assure us that all the processes of 

 life, including man's highest as well as his 

 lowest attributes, can be explained on chemico- 

 physical lines, we are entitled to ask for a more 

 cogent proof of it than the demonstration, how- 

 ever complete, of the germination of an egg, 

 caused by artificial stimulus and not by the 

 ordinary method of syngamy, even though 

 that germination may lead to the production 

 of a perfect adult form. We are entitled to 

 ask him to make clear to us not only what is 

 happening within his system, but which is far 

 more important what that system is, and how 

 it came into existence. We are entitled to ask 

 why the artificial stimulus, or the entry of the 

 spermatozoon, produces the effects which it is 

 claimed to produce instead of any one of some 

 score of other effects which it might con- 

 ceivably have produced. Above all we are en- 

 titled to ask why there are any effects, or even 

 why there is any ovum or any spermatozoon 

 or curious physiological investigator, to give the 

 artificial stimulus. Until some light is thrown 

 upon these things we are still within the sys- 

 tem, or merely hovering round its confines, 

 and are far away from any final or philo- 



