THE BIOLOGY OF DAILY LIFE. 77 



you" [observe the word " prove.*' If a thing is 

 proved it must remain unalterably true. It 

 cannot change except by its being proved the 

 premisses are false, which, in this case, means 

 the abandonment of the protoplasm theory it- 

 self],* " their protoplasm is essentially identical 

 with and most readily converted into that of 

 any animal, I can discover no logical halting 

 place between the admission that such is the 

 case and the further concession that all vital 

 action may, with equal propriety, be said to be 

 the result of the molecular forces of the proto- 

 plasm which displays it ; and if so, it must be 

 true, in the same sense and to the same extent, 

 that the thoughts to which I am now giving 

 utterance, and your thoughts regarding them, 

 are the expressions of molecular changes in 

 that matter of life which is the source of our 

 other vital phenomena." 



The reader will observe that I trouble myself and 

 him with these quotations only so far as they contain 

 " experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact 

 and existence."t I think it can be shown that the 

 experimental reasoning is fallacious, the " facts" relied 

 on are not facts at all, but gross misrepresentations of 

 the phenomena of Nature. J 



* I add this to meet a possible objection to my going back to 

 the "Lay Sermons" (published in 1870). I do so simply 

 because they contain the best description of the protoplasm 

 theory and its logical consequences that I know in the English 

 language. 



f Hume, quoted by Huxley. 



I That the greatest mental acuteness and scientific training 

 are sometimes rather apt to betray their possessors, in simple 



