33 ) !5 



matter is more or less albuminoid." All living matter 

 is more or less albuminoid ! That, indeed, is the single 

 conclusion of Mr. Huxley's whole industry ; but it is a 

 conclusion that, far from requiring the intervention of 

 protoplasm, had been reached long before the word 

 itself had been, in this connection, used. 



It is in this way, then, that Mr. Huxley can be ad- 

 duced in refutation of himself; and I think his resort 

 to an epigram of Goethe's for reduction of the powers 

 of man to those of contraction, digestion, and repro- 

 duction, can be regarded as an admission to the same 

 effect. The epigram runs thus : 



" Warum treibtsich das Volk so, undschreit ? Es will sich ernahren, 

 Kinder zeugen, und die nahren so gut es vermag. 

 Weiter bringt es kein Mensch, stell' er sich wie er auch will." 



That means, quite literally translated, " Why do the * 

 folks bustle and bawl ? They want to feed themselves, 

 get children, and then feed them as best they can ; no 

 man does more, let him do as he may." This, really, 

 is Mr. Huxley's sole proof for his classification of the 

 powers of man. Is it sufficient ? Does it not apply 

 rather to the birds of the air, the fish of the sea, and 

 the beasts of the field, than to man ? Did Newton only 

 feed himself, beget children, and then feed them ? Was 

 it impossible for him to do any more, let him do as 

 he might ? And what we ask of Newton we may ask 

 of all the rest. To elevate, therefore, the passing whim 

 of mere literary Laune into a cosmical axiom and a 

 proof in place this we cannot help adding to the other 

 productions here in which Mr. Huxley appears against 

 himself. 



But were it impossible either for him or us to point 

 to these lacuna, it would still be our right and our duty 



