CHARLES B. WARRING, PH.D. 139 



consumed by a lion takes on the strength, agility and 

 ferocity of the beast that ate it. 



To which I reply, these do not possess the characteris- 

 tics of physical laws, they do not affect all matter, are 

 not certain in their oi)er{iiion, and have no place save in 

 a world already possessed of plants and animals. The 

 passage from youth to old age, the process of assimila- 

 tion, the production of like from like, are the results of 

 the organism itself. They were provided for in its make 

 up, and are necessary to its continuation. They, there- 

 fore, as much as the organism, need for their explanation 

 a force outside of, and supplementary to, physical law. 

 This force I have ascribed to the Will of an intelligent 

 Being, but others think they find it in a fortuitous con- 

 course of atoms. These descendants of Democritus 

 profess to believe that the little particles which make up 

 the universe, having tumbled together an infinite num- 

 ber of times, at last happened to come into the form of a 

 cell. These cells, when enough had been formed, tum- 

 bled around into all sorts of positions, and at last hap- 

 pened to fall into the right shape and arrangement for 

 the germ of a plant, and then of animals, and thus, after 

 sufficient time, all things were set in operation. If such 

 a theory be insufficient for the making of a jack-knife, 

 will it suffice for things infinitely more difficult? Others 

 unable to accept this think they find escape from diffi- 

 culty by referring all things to the working of an "un- 

 conscious intelligence." As if the most exquisite adjust- 

 ments, the most delicate arrangement and co-operation 

 of parts were the work of one who did not know what he 

 was doing ! Our minds revolt at this more, if possible, 

 than at the doctrine of chance. 



The result, then, of our inquiry is that those energies 

 which we call physical, or taken collectively, physical 

 law, and which immeasurably preceded organic law, are 

 blind Corces, each working irresistibly for its own indi- 



77 



