8 THE WORLD OF LIFE CHAP. 



dogmatism of combined negation and omniscience, and more 

 especially when this assumption of superior knowledge seems 

 to be put forward to conceal his real ignorance of the nature 

 of life itself. He evades altogether any attempt to solve 

 the various difficult problems of nutrition, assimilation, and 

 growth, some of which, in the case of birds and insects, I 

 shall endeavour to set forth as clearly as possible in the 

 present volume. As Professor Weismann well puts it, the 

 causes and mechanism by which it comes about that the 

 infinitely varied materials of which organisms are built up 

 " are always in the right place, and develop into cells at the 

 right time," are never touched upon in the various theories 

 of heredity that have been put forward, and least of all in 

 that of Haeckel, who comes before us with what he claims 

 to be a solution of the Riddle of the Universe. 



Huxley on the Nature and Origin of Life 



Although our greatest philosophical biologist, the late 

 Professor T. H. Huxley, opposed the theory of a " vital 

 force " as strongly as Haeckel himself, I am inclined to think 

 that he did so because it is a mere verbal explanation 

 instead of being a fundamental one. It conceals our real 

 ignorance under a special term. In his Introduction to the 

 Classification of Animals (1869), in his account of the 

 Rhizopoda (the group including the Amoebae and Foramini- 

 fera), he says : 



"Nor is there any group in the animal kingdom which more 

 admirably illustrates a very well-founded doctrine, and one which 

 was often advocated by John Hunter, that life is the cause and not 

 the consequence of organisation ; for in these lowest forms of animal 

 life there is absolutely nothing worthy of the name of organisation 

 to be discovered by the microscopist, though assisted by the 

 beautiful instruments that are now constructed. ... It is structure- 

 less and organless, and without definitely formed parts. Yet it 

 possesses all the essential properties and characters of vitality. Nay, 

 more, it can produce a shell ; a structure, in many cases, of extra- 

 ordinary complexity and most singular beauty. 



" That this particle of jelly is capable of guiding physical forces in 

 such a manner as to give rise to those exquisite and almost mathe- 

 matically-arranged structures being itself structureless and without 

 permanent distinction or separation of parts is to my mind a fact 

 of the profoundest significance " (p. i o). 



