THE NATURAL AND THE ARTIFICIAL. 183 



nomena has been growing clearer,and must eventuallybefreed 

 from its imperfections. The certainty that on the one hand 

 such a power exists, while, on the other hand, that its nature 

 transcends intuition, and is beyond imagination, is the certainty 

 towards which intelligence lias from the first been progressing. 

 To this conclusion science inevitably arrives as it reaches 

 its confines, while to this conclusion religion is irresistibly 

 driven. And, satisfying as it does the demands of the 

 most rigorous logic, at the same time that it gives the 

 religious sentiment the widest possible sphere of action, it 

 is the conclusion we are bound to accept without reserve or 

 qualification." 



When from the discussion of matter and force we turn to 

 the phenomena of life we find curiously enough as the 

 unseen directing mind becomes more plainly revealed so is 

 its existence denied with increasing assurance and vigour. 



One way of doing this is by word conjuring, and in defi- 

 nitions of life, describing its phenomena ; as previously 

 *'force" and the "direction of force" were hopelessly con- 

 fused. 



For example, speaking really of the phenomena of life, 

 but ostensibly of life itself, Herbert Spencer says in his 

 classic definition, " Life is an integration of matter and 

 concomitant dissipation of motion, during which the 

 matter passes from an indefinite incoherent homogeneity to 

 a (le finite coherent heterogeneity ; and during Avhich the 

 retained motion undergoes a parallel transformation." 

 Those trained minds who have fully mastered this sentence 

 must confess that the word " Life " in all this polysyllabic 

 tangle does not mean " life," l)ut its phenomena and their 

 results. 



Again, for this point is important, the philosopher says 

 *' Life is the continual adjustment of relations in the 

 organism to relations in the environment." Surely such a 

 statement is misleading. It is not life that is spoken of at 

 all, but one of its attributes or functions. Professor Huxley 

 jjushes the matter still further, and plainly asserts that 

 life is one of the properties of protoplasm. He asks in 

 his Lai/ Sermons, " What justification is there for the 

 assumption of the existence in the living matter of a 

 something which has no representation or correlation in 

 the non-living matter which gave rise to it? If the phe- 

 nomena exhibited by water are its properties, so are those 

 presented by protoplasm, living or dead, its properties. 



