120 THE REIGN" OF LAW. 



and it is only the things which are not seen that 

 are eternal. For example, we never see the 

 phenomena of Life dissociated from Organisation. 

 Yet the profoundest physiologists have come to 

 the conclusion that Organisation is not the cause 

 of Life, but, on the contrary, that Life is the 

 cause of Organisation, — Life being something — 

 a Force of some kind, by whatever name we may 

 call it — which precedes Organisation, and fashions 

 it, and builds it up. This was the conclusion come 

 to by the great anatomist Hunter, and it is the 

 conclusion endorsed in our own day by such men 

 as Dr Carpenter and Professor Huxley, — men 

 whose philosophy has certainly no bias towards 

 either theological or metaphysical explanations, 

 or towards belief in anything which cannot be 

 seen, and weighed, and handled. One illustration 

 referred to by these writers is derived from the 

 shells — the beautiful shells — of the animals called 

 the "Foraminifera."* Xo Forms in Nature are more 

 exquisite. Yet they are the work and the abode 

 of animals which are mere blobs of jelly — without 



* The Elements of Comparative Anatomy, (Huxley,) pp. 10, 

 ii. 



