PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. 103 



thus elaborated, it does not follow that the result of the processes 

 by which matter is fitted to receive life is the cause of the vitality 

 manifested. For all that is known to the contrary protoplasm and 

 vitality are simply concomitant ; or if there is any causal relation 

 between them, vital fprce is the cause of the peculiar properties of 

 protoplasm, not the result of those properties. There really exists 

 a potency or principle called " vital," in virtue of which the chemi- 

 cal substance called protoplasm manifests vitality, that is to say, is 

 alive, and in the absence of which no protoplasmic or other molec- 

 ular aggregation of matter can be alive. The chemico-physical 

 theory simply restates abiogenesis or " spontaneous generation," 

 of which we know nothing scientifically. The grave doubt that 

 " life is a property of protoplasm" will persistently intrude until 

 some one shows what is the chemico-physical difference between 

 living and dead protoplasm ; none being known. 



Noting that chemistry and physics had combined to manufacture 

 an egg which would do everything to be expected of an egg, except 

 to hatch, the speaker summed his charge thus : The atheistic phy- 

 sicist, denying mind in nature, declares that matter alone exists. 

 Matter in motion is all there is ; the cosmos being matter in motion 

 in virtue of material forces alone. This is simply to invent a kind 

 of perpetual motion machine, and leave out even the inventor ; for 

 such a machine invented itself and set itself going. Then the ma- 

 terialistic chemist takes this self-started machine and declares it 

 has laid an egg that will hatch. On any such theory a God is not 

 only superfluous but impossible. Yet the result of the alleged 

 self-evolution of self-created matter through chemical elements to 

 organic compounds has been the creation of a protoplasmic soul so 

 constituted that it must believe in a God ; and if matter be 

 that God, matter contradicts itself, for the constitution of the human 

 soul requires that its God must be other than its protoplasmic self; 

 while if matter be not that God, there must be some other. 



The speaker argued for the existence of the soul as something 

 apart from and unlike matter, defining "soul" as that quantity of 

 spirit which any living body may or does possess. No idea can 

 attach to the term " spirit" from which all conceptions of matter 

 are not absolutely excluded. Spirit is immaterial, self-conscious 

 force ; life consists in the animation of matter by spirit. 



The substance of mind and the substance of matter were noted 

 as equally hypothetical. To the former was given the name 



