Scientific Sophisms. 157 



mother who brings forth all things as the fruit 

 of her own womb." 



In this opinion, Bruno' and his eulogist are 

 at one. In his controversy with Mr. Martineau, 

 a year after the delivery of the Belfast Ad- 

 dress, Dr. Tyndall credits "pure matter with 

 the astonishing building power displayed in 

 crystals and trees." l He " figures " to himself 

 the embryological growth of the babe, and its 

 " appearance in due time, a living miracle, with 

 all its organs and all their implications." He 

 dilates, justly and forcibly, on the wonders of 

 eye and ear : the eye " with its lens, and its 

 humours, and its miraculous retina behind ; " 

 the ear " with its tympanum, cochlea, and Corti's 

 organ an instrument of three thousand strings, 

 built adjacent to the brain, and employed by 

 it to sift, separate, and interpret, antecedent to 

 all consciousness, the sonorous tremors of the ex- 

 ternal world. All this has been accomplished," 

 the ells us, "not only without man's con- 

 trivance, but without his knowledge, the secret 

 of his own organization having been withheld 

 from him since his birth in the immeasurable 

 past, until the other day." And then he adds, 

 "Matter I define as that mysterious thing by 



1 u Materialism and its Opponents," p. 594. 



