186 Al^FRED T. SCHOFIELP, ESQ., M.D., M.E.C.S., ON 



and may we not say, instinct — both properties of mind, 

 and distinct from any known quality of matter. 



Professor Biixley, in liis J^ay Sermons, and in spite of his 

 materiahstic views, beautifully paints the action of mind on 

 matter, or life on protoplasm; as follows : — "Examine the 

 recently laid egg of some common animal, such as a newt or a 

 salamander. It is a minute spheroid, in which the best micro- 

 scopes will reveal nothing but a structureless sac, enclosing 

 a glairy fluid holding granules in suspension. But strange 

 possibilities lie dormant in that semi-fluid globule. Let a 

 moderate supply of warmth reach its watery cradle, and the 

 plastic matter undergoes c])anges so rapid, and yet so 

 steady and purposelike in their succession, that we can 

 only compare them to those operated by a skilled modeller 

 upon a formless lump of clay. As with an invisible 

 trowel, the mass is divided and subdivided into smaller 

 and smaller portions, until it is reduced to an aggre- 

 gate of granules not too large to build Avithal the finest 

 fabrics of the nascent organism. And then it is as if a 

 delicate finger traced out the line to be occupied by the 

 spinal column, and moulded the contour ot the body; 

 pinching up the head at one end, and the tail at the other, 

 and fashioning flank and limb into true and salamandrian 

 proportions in so artistic a way that after wat.ching the 

 process hour by hour one is almost invokmtarily possessed 

 by the notion that some more subtle aid to vision than an 

 achromatic would show the hidden artist striving Avith 

 skilful manipulation to perfect his work." 



Nowhere could we find the action of mind more graphically 

 delineated, or the hidden finger of God more beautifully 

 described, and yet Professor Huxley neutralises all the 

 passage by declaring that matter and force are the names 

 of the hidden artist ! To call matter and force an artist is a 

 ■contradiction in terms, for matter is inert, and force is bhnd. 



Life, as a product of natural laws or forces, is a pu)-e 

 assumption ; and is contradicted by the fact that alth(.ugli 

 often in opposition to them it yet works by their aid. 



The protozon at one end of the scale and ourselves at the 

 other, aUke show this. 



A protozon can swallow, digest, and assimilate food, 

 using the albuminous part for its own tissue, and burning 

 away the rest or rejecting it just as we do; all in opposition 

 to and yet by the aid of natural laws. Like us it can only 

 .feubsist on food a plant has produced. Like us food is 



