AS REGARDS PROTOPLASM, ETC. 35 



Goethe's for reduction of the powers of man to those of contrac- 

 tion, digestion, and reproduction, can be regarded as an admis- 

 sion to the same effect. The epigram runs thus : 



" Warum treibt sich das Volk so, und schreit ? Es will sich ern^hren, 

 Kinder zeugen, und die naliren so gut es vermag. 

 Weiter bringt es kein Mensch, stelT er sich wie er auch will." 



That means, quite literally translated, " Why do the folks make 

 such a pother and stir ? They want to feed themselves, get 

 children, and then feed them as best they can ; no man does 

 more, let him do as he may." This, really, is Mr Huxley's sole 

 proof for his classification of the powers of man. Is it sufficient*? 

 Does it not apply rather to the birds of the air, the fish of the 

 sea, and the beasts of the field, than to man ? Did Newton 

 only feed himself, beget children, and then feed them 1 Was it 

 impossible for him to do any more, let him do as he might? 

 And what we ask of Newton we may ask of all the rest. To 

 elevate, therefore, the passing whim of mere literary Laune into 

 a cosmical axiom and a proof in place this we cannot help 

 adding to the other productions here in which Mr Huxley 

 appears against himself. 



But were it impossible either for him or us to point to these 

 lacuna, it would still be our right and our duty to refer to the 

 present conditions of microscopic science in general as well as 

 in particular, and to demur to the erection of its dicta, constituted 

 as they yet are, into established columns and buttresses in 

 support of any theory of life, material or other. 



The most delicate and dubious of all the sciences, it is also 

 the youngest. In its manipulations the slightest change may 

 operate as a destructive drought, or an equally destructive 

 deluge. Its very tools may positively create the structure it 

 actually examines. The present state of the science, and what 

 warrant it gives Mr Huxley to dogmatise on protoplasm, we 

 may understand from this avowal of Kiihne's : " To-day we 

 believe that we see " such or such fact, " but know not that 

 further improvements in the means of observation will not 

 reveal what is assumed for certainty to be only illusion; ' With 

 such authority to lean on and it is the highest we can have 

 we may be allowed to entertain the conjecture, that it is just 

 possible that some certainties, even of Mr Huxley, may yet 

 reveal themselves as illusions. 



But, in resistance to any sweeping conclusions built on it, we 

 are not confined to a reference to the imperfections involved in 

 the very nature and epoch of the science itself in general. 

 With yet greater assurance of carrying conviction with us, .we 

 may point in particular to the actual opinions of its present pro- 

 fessors. We have seen already, in the consideration premised, 

 that Mr Huxley's hypothesis of a protoplasm matter is unsup- 



