20 AS REGARDS PROTOPLASM, ETC. 



what he indicates, perhaps we may expect this consummation 

 not to be so very long delayed. More than those members of 

 the revulsion already mentioned, one is apt to suspect, will be 

 anxious now to beat a retreat. Not that this, however, is so 

 certain to be allowed them ; for their estimate of M. Comte is a 

 valuable element in our estimate of them. 



Frankness on the part of Mr Huxley is not limited to his 

 opinion of M. Comte ; it accompanies us throughout his whole 

 essay. He seems even to take pride, indeed, in naming always 

 and everywhere his object at the plainest. That object, 

 in a general point of view, relates, he tells us, solely to 

 materialism, but with a double issue. While it is his declared 

 purpose, in the first place, namely, to lead us into materialism, 

 it is equally his declared purpose, in the second place, to lead 

 us out of materialism. On the first issue, for example, he directly 

 warns his audience that to accept the conclusions which he 

 conceives himself to have established on protoplasm, is to accept 

 these also : That " all vital action " is but " the result of the 

 molecular forces " of the physical basis ; and that, by conse- 

 quence, to use his own words to his audience, " the thoughts to 

 which I am now giving utterance, and your thoughts regarding 

 them are but the expression of molecular changes in that 

 matter of life which is the source of our other vital phenomena." 

 And, so far, I think, we shall not disagree with Mr Huxley when 

 he says that " most undoubtedly the terms of his propositions 

 are distinctly materialistic." Still, on the second issue, Mr 

 Huxley asserts that he is " individually no materialist." " On 

 the contrary, he believes materialism to involve grave philoso- 

 phical error ; " and the " union of materialistic terminology 

 with the repudiation of materialistic philosophy " he con- 

 ceives himself to share " with some of the most thoughtful 

 men with whom he is acquainted." In short, to unite both 

 issues, we have it in Mr Huxley's own words, that it is the 

 single object of his essay " to explain how such a union is not 

 only consistent with, but necessitated by, sound logic ; " and 

 that, accordingly, he will, in the first place, " lead us through the 

 territory of vital phenomena to the materialistic slough," while 

 pointing out, in the second, " the sole path by which, in his judg- 

 ment, extrication is possible." Mr Huxley's essay, then, falls 

 evidently into two parts ; and of these two parts we may say, 

 further, that while the one that in which he leads us into 

 materialism will be predominatingly physiological, the other 

 or that in which he leads us out of materialism will be predo- 

 minatingly philosophical. Two corresponding parts would thus 

 seem to be prescribed to any full discussion of the essay ; and 

 of these, in the present needs of the world, it is evidently the 

 latter that has the more promising theme. The truth is, how- 



