Scientific Sophisms. J 33 



or (2) by confessing that the " subtle influences " 

 invoked by Mr. Huxley to eke out the defi- 

 ciencies of protoplasmic chemistry are nothing 

 else than under another name that very 

 same vital force or vital principle in which it 

 is now so unfashionable and so unscientific 

 to believe. 1 



9. In truth, however, the fulcrum on which 

 Mr. Huxley's protoplasmic materialism rests 

 is a single inference from a chemical analogy. 

 But analogy, which is never identity, though 

 often mistaken for it, is apt to betray. The 

 difference which it covers may be essential, 

 while the likeness it reveals may be inessential 

 as far as the conclusion is concerned. The 

 analogy to which Mr. Huxley trusts has two 

 references : one to chemical composition, and 

 one to a certain stimulus that determines it. 

 In both of these the analogy fails : in both it 

 can only seem to succeed by discounting the 

 elements of difference that still subsist. 



It cannot be denied that protoplasm is a 

 chemical substance. It cannot be denied that 

 protoplasm is a physical substance. Both 

 physically and chemically, water (as a compound 

 of hydrogen, and oxygen) and protoplasm (as 



1 Dr. Elam's "Automatism and Evolution" 

 560. 



