Sophisms. 105 



from one to the other. For, in order to " dis- 

 cern in matter the promise" of conscious life, 

 we must be able,' by observation of its merely 

 physical movements, to forecast, in a world 

 as yet insentient, the future phenomena of 

 thought and feeling. Yet this is precisely the 

 transition which is pronounced " unthinkable." 

 " We do not possess the intellectual organ, 

 nor apparently any rudiment of the organ, 

 which would enable us to pass, by a process 

 of reasoning, from the one to the other. 

 They appear together, but we do not know 

 why," 1 



It is an instructive spectacle. Professor 

 Huxley " expecting " to witness, in the remote 

 past, the performance of a feat which he sees 

 "no reason for believing" has ever yet been 

 performed; and Professor Tyndalh" by an in- 

 tellectual necessity " and a " vision of the mind," 

 crossing "the chasm" "intellectually impass- 

 able" which separates two classes of pheno- 

 mena, although he does " not possess the intel- 

 lectual organ, nor apparently any rudiment of 

 the organ, which would enable him to pass, by 

 a process of reasoning, from the one to the 

 other." 



1 " Materialism and its Opponents," p. 589. 



