234 Mr. J. J. Woodward on the Modern 
may conveniently be designated the chemico-physical hypo- 
thesis of life, has readily found its way from the speculative 
writings of philosophers to the rostrums of some of our teachers 
of chemistry and physics, who boldly declare, in their class- 
lectures and public addresses, that the forces at work in the 
inorganic world are fully adequate to explain all the pheno- 
mena of living beings, and prophesy that the time is soon 
coming “when the last vestige of the vital principle as an 
independent entity shall disappear from the terminology of 
science’ =. 
Now most of these gentlemen are not embarrassed by any 
very definite or detailed knowledge of the physiological and 
pathological phenomena which a tenable theory of lite must 
be competent to explain, while they do know, or at least 
ought to know, a great deal of chemistry and physics; the 
confidence with which they maintain their creed is therefore 
readily understood. Much more surprising is it to find the 
same doctrine embraced by numerous zoologists, physiolo- 
gists, nay, even pathologists, among them men who cannot 
for a moment be supposed to be unacquainted with the pheno- 
mena to be explained, and of whose abilities and reasoning 
powers it is impossible for me to think or speak otherwise 
than respectfully. Yet I cannot but believe that they have 
adopted the chemico-physical hypothesis, not so much because 
they are really satisfied with it as a scientific explanation of * 
all the phenomena, as because they are unduly biassed in its 
favour by the utterances of the great philosopher who has 
done, as [ think we will all agree, such good service to bio- 
logical science by elaborating and popularizing the doctrine 
of evolution. 
It is only natural that such a bias should exist. The dis- 
cussion of the nature of life, in the case of man at least, has 
always, and not unreasonably, been conjoined with the dis- 
cussion of the nature of the soul; and the philosophers who 
have won higher repute in the latter discussion have always 
been willing enough to offer solutions of the life-problem, and 
have never had any difficulty in finding followers even among 
those whose special lines of investigation might be supposed 
to impose upon them the duty of independent inquiry into the 
meaning of life. 
Just as it was in the old time with regard to this matter, so 
itis now. When Galen undertakes to discuss the complex 
* George F. Barker, “Some Modern Aspects of the Life Questicn” 
(Address as President of the Amer. Assoc. for the Advancement of 
Science, Boston meeting, August 1880; ‘ Proceedings,’ vol. xxix. part i. 
p. 23). 
