MAUDSLEY ON HEREDITARY DESCENT. 45 



BOWNE, Professor, The Philosophy of Herbert Spencer, 

 pp. 95-106.) 



3. Organic matter grows ; inorganic matter does 

 not. The former increases by selective assimilation, 

 the latter by accretion. What is added to the one 

 gains no new properties : what is added to the other 

 takes on new powers. 



When I roll my snowball in the snow, what is 

 added is snow after it is added. When Plymouth 

 Rock is rolled in the sand, the particles which are 

 taken up acquire no new properties. But, when 

 new matter is added to living tissues, it takes on 

 new properties. It is as different from the old as 

 life is from death. Gases, food of various kinds, are 

 absorbed by the bioplasts, and changed into germinal 

 matter which has a power of weaving all the tissues 

 of the body. Such new properties are given it, that 

 we have in one place a nerve, in another a muscle, in 

 another a tendon, in another a cellular integument. 

 This action is altogether different from that of inor- 

 ganic matter, and implies a power higher than chemi- 

 cal, and co-ordinating all these activities. 



4. Established science teaches that the molecular 

 atoms are always the same. They change their com- 

 binations, but not their individual qualities. 



Clerk Maxwell has written a famous essay on 

 molecular atoms ; there has been elaborate investi- 

 gation of this topic by many physicists, and it is 

 now generally conceded that the ultimate particles 

 of matter never change their shape or their proper- 

 ties. It follows that you cannot draw life out of 



