DEATH AND RESURRECTION. 83 



gation to do more than point to some 

 scientific facts, without investigating 

 whether these facts support their spec- 

 ulations or not. Faithful to this cus- 

 tom, Btichner stops just where his own 

 researches should have commenced. 

 Btichner has not written a textbook on 

 physics or chemistry. He has under- 

 taken the extremely serious task of in- 

 vestigating whether modern natural 

 science has produced results which 

 show that nothing but matter and its 

 forces, and consequently no soul, no 

 eternal life, etc., exist. Our first de- 

 mand of such an analysis would be, to 

 put it moderately, that the facts cited 

 really prove what they are put forward 

 to prove. But to this demand neither 

 Btichner nor his followers pay any at- 

 tention. Btichner might, for instance, 

 in regard to the facts last mentioned, 

 have taken the following questions as 

 the starting point for his investigations: 

 It is true that the chemists have pro- 

 duced artificially certain organic com- 

 pounds of inorganic elements, and they 



