422 ADDITIONAL PHENOMENA OF NATURAL MAGIC. 



structure which we find can be chemically acted on. 

 But structure implies construction, and therefore gold 

 must have been constructed. We also know that self- 

 existence must reside, not in the thing constructed, but in 

 the primary constructor ; and thus we analytically prove 

 the superiority of a child's logic over that of a philosopher. 

 It may be asked, why does man as he grows up lose this 

 originally high and clear reasoning power reaching to abso- 

 lute conclusions ? The answer is, that as man grows up 

 he acquires bias, and starts favourite theories and hypo- 

 theses within the limits of his powers. It is the unvitiated 

 candour of a child that constitutes its superiority and its 

 conclusiveness reaching to the utmost penetrable limits. 



Here in a department then of distinctly demonstrable 

 and experienced scientific fact we have as it were the 

 evidence that from the Creator's vital energy all conscious 

 existence has been produced, in that He has conferred upon 

 vitality a reproductive power which would be almost as 

 wonderful as his own, were it, like his, exerted by an 

 absolute, conscious, and fully enlightened volition. 



What a marvellous essence then is this intrinsic element 

 of us all called life ! An element whose association with 

 physical nature is merely factitious, not inherent which 

 requires no physical space for its accommodation, and 

 does not disturb the quiescence, nor displace the juxta- 

 position or volume of matter while traversing through or 

 touching it. Matter may touch matter, and cause motion 

 or action in it ; but while life may also touch matter, and 

 by its presence endow it with vital powers, it is not, save 

 when associated with feeling, as in animals but not in 

 plants conscious of its contact with the matter in which 

 it exists, any more than a stone is conscious of contact 

 with a stone, where the contact is not the less real that 

 consciousness does not perceive it. Life may indeed 

 cause motion in matter, but not by direct but only by 



