200 ALFRED T. SCHOFIELD, ESQ.^ ON THE NATURAL, ETC. 



immenge area be thus peopled with new and lasting or transitory 

 and evanescent living: forms. 



Dr. D. BiDDLE, M.R.C.S., writes :— 



This paper, a proof of which I have had the privilege of reading, 

 is one of the most powerful aids to Faith that I have met with, 

 and comes as a great refreshment after a perusal of Professor 

 Bradley's highly metaphysical woi'k, "Appearance and Beality," 

 touching as it does on many of the same questions. It may he 

 impossible to deny that " reality is sentient experience," but it is 

 equally impossible to deny that whole worlds of possible ex- 

 perience lie beyond the actual experience of any individual. 

 Moreover, the experience of the individual convinces him that 

 in some part of it he is active and in the rest passive, that events 

 are rarely determined by himself, but follow a law in the laying 

 down of which he had no part. 



I quite endorse Dr. Schofield's assertion that although evolution 

 in art is marked by imperfection in the earlier stages and indeed 

 throughout, such is not the case in the earlier products evolved by 

 the Creator. But I fail to see that protoplasmic " life " involves 

 intelligence which is lacking in inorganic nature. In the human 

 being there are many processes of life which are uncontrolled by 

 his intellect, and yet woi'k according to laws as fixed as those of 

 gravitation and the like, althongh we regard them as of a higher 

 kind. So-called " natural selection " is never capricious but 

 strictly governed by laws. 



Professor H. Webster Parker, LL.D., New York, writes, 

 suggesting that in discussing the subject the use of the term 

 animal in contradistinction to human would have made the 

 author's argument clearer. 



Professor Parker's remarks are of unusual length ; it is hoped 

 that they may shoi'tly form a basis for a paper. 



