Scientific Sophisms. 1 1 5 



that in some way or other they result from the 

 properties of the component elements of water. 

 We do not assume that something called 

 aquosity entered into and took possession of the 

 oxide of hydrogen as soon as it was formed, 

 and then guided the aqueous particles to their 

 places in the facets of the crystal or among the 

 leaflets of the hoar-frost." Why, then, "when 

 carbonic acid, water, and ammonia disappear, 

 and in their place, under the influence of pre- 

 existing protoplasm, an equivalent weight of 

 the matter of life makes its appearance," should 

 we assume, in the living matter, the existence 

 of "a something which has no representative 

 or correlative in the unliving matter that gave 

 rise to it"? Why imagine that into the newly 

 formed hydro-nitrogenised oxide of carbon a 

 something called vitality entered and took 

 possession ? " What better philosophic status 

 has vitality than aquosity?" 



These questions, as will presently appear, 

 present no difficulty. They admit of answers 

 too complete to leave room for further question. 

 The only difficulty is that which presents itself 

 when we attempt to determine Professor Hux- 

 ley's relation to them. For incredible as it 

 must seem to those not acquainted with the 

 facts, the propositions above cited are at once 



