144 HUXLEY 



has been seen, Dr. Alfred Russel Wallace and others 

 hold concerning the introduction of a spiritual faculty 

 into man at some stage of his development being ex- 

 tended, in the popular mind, to the introduction of 

 life on the globe as due to the direct action of the 

 Almighty. Huxley's assertion that " living matter 

 differs from other matter in degree and not in kind," 

 is, therefore, a hard saying, and few there be who 

 accept it. It seems to shatter " the mighty hopes that 

 make us men." The theory that man has descended, 

 in an unbroken chain, like all the other higher ani- 

 mals, from simple life-forms, offends his " pride of 

 life " ; but the theory that there is no difference in 

 kind between him and the dust on which he treads 

 excites his repugnance, and stirs him to revolt. It 

 was repellant enough to make him one with the tardy 

 snail and the immobile oyster, for the question of his 

 immortality seemed thereby involved with that of 

 theirs ; but to make him one with the lifeless earth 

 seemed the very " superfluity of naughtiness," and 

 the outcome of a diabolical materialism. 



Huxley knew that this cry would be raised when 

 he went to Edinburgh. And although, as will be 

 seen, he made " a protest, from the philosophical side, 

 against what is commonly called ' materialism,' " he 

 found himself " generally credited with having in- 

 vented ' protoplasm ' in the interests of c material- 



