U52 HUXLEY FOLLOWS HACKEL. 



the first examples of living matter were formed. 

 There may exist such a process, or there may not as 

 yet none such is known to exist, or even to have 

 existed. Fletcher is content to receive the doctrine of 

 the inspired record, that it was fashioned from the 

 " dust of the ground," by a power just as miraculous. 

 as would be involved in the creation of a spiritual 

 substance called life. It is thus, I think, evident that 

 Dr. Stirling's otherwise very clever and interesting 

 tract, " As Regards Protoplasm," is really not directed 

 against the true protoplasm theory as long ago ex- 

 pounded by Fletcher, but only against certain omis- 

 sions and ambiguities in Mr. Huxley's mode of pre- 

 senting it to the public. 



It may be interesting to trace back a little farther 

 the source of these ambiguities, as I think it will 

 thereby be made plain that unless we frankly admit 

 Fletcher's doctrine of the non-existence of the so- 

 called proximate principles albumen, gelatin, fibrin, 

 &c. in the living matter, we cannot maintain the 

 theory of vitality as a property of protoplasm. Now 

 Mr. Huxley makes no pretension to originality in ex- 

 pounding the protoplasm theory in fact, he distinctly 

 disavows that. But instead of going back to Fletcher, 

 who first put it forward as an hypothesis, or to Beale, 

 who discovered it in its complete form, he takes 

 Hackel as his guide. Let us see how far Hackel is 

 qualified to be a safe and unprejudiced guide. Here, 

 however unwillingly, we are compelled to touch on 

 doctrines of general philosophy which trench upon 

 revealed religion. The fact is that Hackel is a 

 Pantheist, or what we are accustomed to look upon as 



