AND RVOLUTION. r,r. 



Tliat "matter is not itself alive" Professor Knight 



seems i as an axiomatic truth. Let us nlace in 



contrast with this tin- notion entei lamed l>\ the philosopher 



Ueberweg, one of the subtlest heads t many has 



What occurs in the hr.iin." suys Ueberweg, 



hi, in my opinion, n<>t I,,- possible, if the process 

 which In-;. - in its great D did nut 



obtuin generally , only in a vastly diminished degree. 

 a pair ami a cask of t! 



ment the animals increase and inul: 1 in the same 



proportio-. >nsand feelings augment. The quantity 



of tin-so la t tor possessed by the first pair, is not Him ply 

 diffused among their descendants, for in that case the last 

 mn>t feel more feel.lv than the ilrst. The sensations and 

 feelings must necessarily be referred back to the flour, 

 where they exist, weak and pale it is true, and not concen- 

 trated as they are in the brain/'* We may not be able to 

 taste or smell alcohol in a tub of fermented clu-nies, but 

 by distillation we obtain from them concentrated Kirsch- 

 wasser. Hence I'eberweg's comparison of the luain to a 

 still, which concentrates the sensation and feeling, pre- 

 existing, but diluted in the food. 



"Definitions," says Mr, II .t " grow as the horizon 



of expcii.-ncc expands. They are not inventions, but 

 descriptions of the state of a question. No man sees all 

 through a discovery at once." Thus Descartes' notion of 

 matter, and his explanation of motion, would be put aside 

 as trivial by a physiologist or a crystullographcr of tin- 

 present day. They are not descriptions of the state of the 



on. And yet a desire sometimes shows itself in dis- 

 tinguished quarters to bind us down to conceptions which 

 passed muster in the infancy of knowledge, but which are 

 wholly incompatible with our present enlightenment. Mr. 

 Marline. ui, I think, errs when he seeks to hold me to views 

 enunciated by " hemocritus and the matiien 

 That <!elinitions should change as knowledge advances is in 



dance both with sound sense and scientific practice. 



. fr example, the nndulatory theory was start' 

 was not imagined that the vibrations of light could be 



LrttartoUan: "Ctatsfekht*4si HatUUssMS, 



ctetnth Century, September, 1878. 



