PROFESSOR VIRCHOW AND EVOLUTION. 641 



body, instead of replacing others, and thus renewing a 

 pre-existing form, to be gathered first-hand from nature, 

 and placed in the exact relative positions which they occupy 

 in the body. Supposing them to have the same forces and 

 distribution of forces, the same motions and distribution 

 of motions would this organized concourse of molecules 

 stand before us as a sentient, thinking being? There 

 seems no valid reason to assume that it would not. Or 

 supposing a planet carved from the sun, set spinning round 

 an axis, and sent revolving round the sun at a distance 

 equal to that of our earth, would one consequence of the 

 refrigeration of the mass be the development of organic 

 forms? I lean to the affirmative." This is plain speaking, 

 but it is without " dogmatism." An opinion is ex- 

 pressed, a belief, a leaning not an established " doc- 

 trine." 



The burden of my writings in this connection is as 

 much a recognition of the weakness of science as an 

 assertion of its strength. In 1867, I told the workingmen 

 of Dundee that while making the largest demand for free- 

 dom of investigation; while considering science to be alike 

 powerful as an instrument of intellectual culture, and as a 

 ministrant to the material wants of men; if asked whether 

 science has solved, or is likely in our day to solve, " the 

 problem of the universe," I must shake my head in doubt. 

 I compare the mind of man to a musical instrument with a 

 certain range of notes, beyond which in both directions 

 exists infinite silence. The phenomena of matter and 

 force come within our intellectual range; but behind, and 

 above, and around us the real mystery of the universe lies 

 unsolved, and, as far as we are concerned,, is incapable of 

 solution. 



While refreshing my mind on these old themes I appear 

 to myself as a person possessing one idea, which so over- 

 masters him that he is never weary of repeating it. That 

 idea is the polar conception of the 'grandeur and the little- 

 ness of man the vastness of his range in some respects and 

 directions, and his powerlessuess to take a single step in 

 others. In 1868, before the Mathematical and Physical 

 Section of the British Association, then assembled at 

 Norwich, I repeat the same well-worn note: 



"In thus affirming the growth of the human body to be 

 mechanical, and thought as exercised by us to have its 



