6 PREFACE. 



special critical lecture, which I have read with much interest, 

 though, I confess, the meaning of much of it remains as dark to 

 me as does the ' Secret of Hegel,' after Dr Stirling's elaborate 

 revelation of it. Dr Stirling's method of dealing with the sub- 

 ject is peculiar. * Protoplasm' is a question of history, so far as 

 it is a name ; of fact, so far as it is a thing. Dr Stirling has 

 not taken the trouble to refer to the original authorities for his 

 history, which is consequently a travesty ; and, still less, has he 

 concerned himself with looking at the facts, but contents him- 

 self with taking them also at second hand. A most amusing 

 example of this fashion of dealing with scientific statements is 

 furnished by Dr Stirling's remarks upon my account of the 

 protoplasm of the nettle hair. That account was drawn up 

 from careful and often-repeated observation of the facts. Dr 

 Stirling thinks he is offering a valid criticism, when he says that 

 my valued friend, Professor Strieker, gives a somewhat different 

 statement about protoplasm. But why in the world did not 

 this distinguished Hegelian look at a nettle hair for himself, 

 before venturing to speak about the matter at all 1 Why trouble 

 himself about what either Strieker or I say, when any tyro can 

 see the facts for himself, if he is provided with those not rare 

 articles a nettle and a microscope ? But I suppose this would 

 have been 'Aufkldrung ' a recurrence to the base common-sense 

 philosophy of the eighteenth century, which liked to see before 

 it believed, and to understand before it criticised. Dr Stirling 

 winds up his paper with the following paragraph : ' In short, 

 the whole position of Mr Huxley, (1) that all organisms consist 

 alike of the same life-matter, (2) which life-matter is, for its 

 part, due only to chemistry, must be pronounced untenable 

 nor less untenable (3) the materialism he would found on it.' 



" The paragraph contains three distinct assertions concerning 

 my views, and just the same number of utter misrepresenta- 

 tions of them. That which I have numbered (1) turns on the 

 ambiguity of the word ' same,' for a discussion of which I 

 would refer Dr Stirling to a great hero of * AufkldrungJ Arch- 

 bishop Whately; statement number (2) is, in my judgment, 

 absurd; and certainly I have never said anything resembling 

 it; while, as to number (3), one great object of my essay was 

 to show that what is called ' materialism ' has no sound philo- 

 sophical basis ! " 



Now this, so far as it is anything, is, as one sees, clever ; but it 



