i SCHOLASTIC DOGMAS 57 



used in physical investigation. Yet as 

 regards at least the tone of dogma and 

 authority, and also as regards the method 

 of reasoning, we have from Mr. Spencer 

 in this paper the following wonderful 

 specimen of scholastic teaching on the 

 profoundest questions of organic struc- 

 ture : " At first protoplasm could have no 

 proclivities to one or other arrangement 

 of parts ; unless indeed a purely mechani- 

 cal proclivity towards a spherical form 

 when suspended in a liquid. At the 

 outset it must have been passive. In 

 respect of its passivity, primitive organic 

 matter must have been like inorganic 

 matter. No such thing as spontaneous 

 variation could have occurred in it ; for 

 variation implies some habitual course 

 of change from which it is a divergence, 

 and is therefore excluded where there is 

 no habitual course of change." What 

 possible knowledge can Mr. Spencer 



