PROF. LIONEL S. BEALE, F.R.C.P., F.R.S., ON VITALITY. 59 
would take much time; but like many of the scientific 
articles that appear in the Spectator, an opinion seems to 
be almost accepted in one place, and gently condemned and 
doubted in another, leaving the reader to infer that neither 
of two opposite views is wholly right or wholly wrong. 
The Spectator does not assert, and no paper has yet said, 
that the agnostic holds such and such views correctly. Many 
people call themselves agnostics, but when you talk to them 
or read what they have written on the subject you find that 
they evidently consider that they know all that can be 
known, and lay down the law in a way that is not con- 
siderate towards anyone who doubts whether he snows—who 
in truth is agnostic concerning many things. But the 
“agnostic” is most knowing. In the time of the ancient 
Greeks the same sort of thing occurred. Certain people 
advanced reasons, and advocated reasoning in the most 
patient and considerate way ; but some seem to have been 
devoted to dogma of the most tremendous kind. In modern 
days I do not say that great scientific authorities are more 
dogmatic than ancient philosophers; but those who a few 
years ago were proud of their agnosticism would say, for 
example: ‘“ Man is a machine, and all his actions are mechan- 
ical”—a rather confident assertion for an unsophisticated, 
simple, not knowing, modest agnostic. No man, animal, or 
plant is a machine or is formed as every machine from the 
very first in existence was made—in pieces ; and no human, 
no vital action is purely mechanical or chemical. Again, 
with regard to the word “ evolution,” which is in everybody’s 
mouth, and is applied to politics, philosophy, religion, music, 
poetry, history, thought, and learning as well as to wind- 
mills, water-mills, instruments of all kinds, and articles of 
dress ! 
Evolution unquestionably occurs in all life; but the seat of 
this evolution is the inconspicuous, colourless, structureless living 
matter. Different kinds of living matter may be examined 
by the highest magnifying powers, and yet we shail obtain 
no indications of structure. Such is the only material in 
which true evolution occurs in all life. Living matter comes 
from living matter which existed before it, and the last from 
previously existing living matter, and so on, as far back as we 
may proceed. As to structure, when evolution is proceeding, 
there is none. 
Structure is not produced from the structureless, for some 
time. This seems to me to be the truth with regard to 
