184 ALFRED T. SCHOFIELD, ESQ., M.D., M.R.C.S., ON 



If tlie properties of water may properly be said to result 

 from the nature and disposition of its component molecules, 

 I can find no intelligible ground for refusing to say that the 

 properties of protoplasm arise from the nature and 



disposition of its molecules We know that the 



phenomena of vitality are not something apart from other 

 physical phenomena but one with them : and matter and force 

 are the names of the one artist who fashions the living as 

 well as the lifeless." Elsewhere Dr. Huxley says, "It is as 

 lidiculous to speak of life apart from protoplasm as to speak 

 of the ' aquosity ' of water." 



Observe where we arrive. Life is a property of a special 

 form of matter, and matter and force are the names of th& 

 one Artist who fashioned it ! 



Buchner, bolder and bolder still, actually says, " The facts 

 of physical science yiroi'e (sic) that all organic beings owe their 

 existence solely to the conjoiDed action of natural forces and 

 materials. Organic beings are derived by spontaneous 

 generation by the combustion of inorganic elements." 



Now the facts of physical science prove nothing of the 

 kind, and such assertions by men of science surely tend to 

 bring many of their so-called " facts " into discredit. 



Protoplasm has long been made to do duty for a God; but 

 what is protoplasm ? Oiu' latest scientists are begimiing to 

 see that it is not a simple substance at all, but a very complex 

 one ; and that very probably not it, but the granules it is 

 seen to contain under a power of 4,000 diam., may be the 

 so-called physical basis of life. In fact we are hearing less 

 and less of protoplasm; and the granules themselves, had Ave 

 power to investigate them, might turn out to be very worlds 

 of complexity, so that dogmatic postulation on such ricketty 

 premises is to the last extent undesirable. 



Unbelief and Atheism both live by faith that the origin of 

 life will yet be accounted for, but we do not need to wait 

 for the advent of that day to see that such statements as 

 that " organic forms are built up by the play of molecular 

 forces " are pernicious rubbish. Rubbish, because without 

 meaning, and pernicious, because trifling with a great 

 subject. 



In 1885, Dr. Nicholson says, " I do not say that it may 

 not be ultimately proved that dead and living protoplasm 

 are one and the same substance, with no other difference 

 than that dead protoplasm is in a statical, and living proto- 

 plasm in a dynamical condition," a statement which seems to 



