no 



(38) 



the proof, I ask, if the bricks are not the same because 

 the clay is not the same, what if the materiality of the 

 former is equally unsupported by the materiality of the 

 latter ? Or what if the functions of protoplasm are not 

 properties of its mere molecular constitution ? 



For this is Mr. Huxley,s second proposition, namely, 

 That, all vital and intellectual functions are but the 

 properties of the molecular disposition and changes of 

 the material basis (protoplasm) of which the various 

 animals and vegetables consist. With the conclusions 

 now before us, it is evident that to enter at all on this 

 part of Mr. Huxley's argumentation is, so far as we 

 are concerned, only a matter of grace. In order that 

 it should have any weight, we must grant the fact, at 

 once of the existence of a matter of life, and of all or- 

 gans and organisms being but aggregates of it. This, 

 obviously, we cannot now do. By way of hypothesis, 

 however, we may assume it. Let it be granted, then, 

 that/rtf hac vice there is a physical basis of life with all 

 the consequences named ; and now let us see how Mr. 

 Huxley proceeds to establish its materiality. 



The whole former part of Mr. Huxley's essay consists 

 (as said) of fifty paragraphs, and the argument imme- 

 diately concerned is confined to the latter ten of them. 

 This argument is the simple chemical analogy that, un- 

 der stimulus of an electric spark, hydrogen and oxygen 

 uniting into an equivalent weight of water, and, under 

 stimulus of preexisting protoplasm, carbon, hydrogen, 

 oxygen, and nitrogen uniting into an equivalent weight 

 of protoplasm, there is the same warrant for atttribu- 

 ting the properties of the consequent to the properties 

 of the antecedents in the latter case as in the former. 

 The properties of protoplasm are, in origin and charac- 



