Scientific Sophisms. ' 147 



life, or the basis of physical life. 1 But is it not 

 hard that the discoverer of ' subtle influences ' 

 should laugh at the fiction of ' vitality ' / By 

 calling thfngs which differ from one another in 

 many qualities by the same name, Huxley seems 

 to think he can annihilate distinctions, enforce 

 identity, and sweep away the difficulties which 

 have impeded the progress of previous philo- 

 sophers in their search after unity. Plants and 

 worms and men are all protoplasm, and proto- 

 plasm is albuminous matter, and albuminous 

 matter consists of four elements, and these 

 four elements possess certain properties, by 

 which properties all differences between plants 

 and worms and men are to be accounted for. 

 Although Huxley would probably admit that a 

 worm was not a man, he would tell us that by 

 ' subtle influences ' and ' under sundry circum- 

 stances,' the one thing might be easily con- 

 verted into the other, and not by such non- 

 sensical fictions as ' vitality/ which can neither 

 be weighed, measured, nor conceived. But, in 



1 [Note by Dr. Beale :] The heading of his lecture as 

 published in The Scotsman for November 9, 1868, is " The 

 Bases of Physical Life," while his communication in The 

 Fortnightly, February i, 1 869, referred to by him as this 

 same lecture, is entitled " The Physical Basis of Life." 

 The iron basis of the candle, and the basis of the iron 

 candle, are expressions evidently interchangeable. 



