98 Scientific Sophisms. 



firming is, that I see no reason for believing that 

 the feat has been performed yet," rests on 

 reasons at once valid and intelligible, assignable 

 and assigned. Any declaration, therefore, an- 

 tagonistic to this, must of necessity be devoid 

 of reason. Yet such is precisely the declaration 

 which, in the very next paragraph, Professor 

 Huxley proceeds to make. "If it were given 

 me," he says, "to look beyond the abyss of 

 geologically-recorded time ... I should 

 expect to be a witness of the evolution of living 

 protoplasm from not living matter." l He would 

 " expect to witness," in that " remote period," the 

 performance of a feat which he sees " no reason 

 for believing " has ever " been performed yet." 



Professor Tyndall believes that if a planet 

 were " carved from the sun, set spinning round 

 an axis, and revolving round the sun at a dis- 

 tance from him equal to that of our earth," 3 

 one of the " consequences of its refrigeration " 

 would be "the development of organic forms." 

 If you ask what reason can be assigned for this 

 belief, you are asked in turn, "Who will set 

 limits to the possible play of molecules in a 

 cooling planet?" 3 



This conclusive question is suggestive of 



1 " Critiques and Addresses," p. 239. 

 * " Fragments of Science." Sixth Edition (1879), v l- " 

 p. 51. * Ibid. 



