268 THE PROTOPLASMIC THEORY IS MATERIALISM, 



rialism in the ordinary common-sense meaning of the 

 term without any metaphysical subterfuge in the 

 background, as applied to the scientific doctrine of 

 life and mind of animals and of man, in as far as these 

 attributes are common to him and them. But what of 

 this ? Is it not the veriest truism, and the mere ex- 

 pression of the fact of mortality common to all living 

 beings, including man ? " For when the breath of 

 man goeth forth, he shall turn again to his earth, and 

 all his thoughts perish" (Ps. cxlvi.). What further diffi- 

 culty is thrown into the conception of the resurrection 

 of the body when we have always known that the 

 elements are utterly dispersed and used over and over 

 again in numberless different organized individuals ? 

 The miracle of resurrection stands exactly as it was, 

 whether we attribute mortal animal life to a spirit 

 to us incomprehensible or to a collocation of material 

 atoms. It is true that the materialism of the proto- 

 plasmic theory has been used as an argument by those 

 who on other grounds are disposed to reject all super- 

 natural interference and revelation ; but then such 

 persons will seize on every fact and doctrine in natural 

 science which may be made to appear to serve their 

 purpose. No better example of this can be found 

 than that of Voltaire, who, ignorant of the develop- 

 ment that geology was about to undergo, attempted to 

 explain away the significance of the shells on Alpine 

 mountains by their having fallen from the hats of pil- 

 grims, when their presence was adduced by equally 

 ignorant religious partisans as evidence of the deluge. 

 In allusion to these perversions of the foregoing theories 

 of life and rnind, Fletcher says 



