342 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY chap, xxiii 



which can only be called purposive, such as moving to 

 recover its balance when the board on which it stands is 

 inclined, or scratching where it is made uncomfortable, or 

 croaking when pressed in a particular spot. If its spinal 

 cord be severed, the lower limbs, disconnected from the 

 brain, will also perform actions of this kind. The question 

 arises, Is the frog entirely a soulless automaton, performing 

 all its actions directly in response to external stimuli, only 

 more perfectly and with more delicate adjustment when its 

 brain remains intact, or is its soul distributed along its 

 spinal marrow, so that it can be divided into two parts inde- 

 pendent of one another? 



The professed metaphysician might perhaps tend to 

 regard such consideration as irrelevant; but if the starting- 

 point of metaphysics is to be found in psychology, psychol- 

 ogy itself depends to no small extent upon physiology. 

 This question, however, Huxley did not pretend to solve. 

 In the existing state of knowledge he believed it to be in- 

 soluble. But he thought it was not without its bearing 

 upon the supposed relations of soul and body in the human 

 subject, and should serve to give pause to current theories 

 on the matter. 



His third paper, read January ii, 1876, was on the 

 " Evidence of the Miracle of the Resurrection," in which he 

 argued that there was no valid evidence of actual death 

 having taken place. His rejection of the miraculous had 

 led to an invitation from some of his opponents in the 

 society to write a paper on a definite miracle, and explain 

 his reasons for not accepting it. His choice of subject was 

 due to two reasons: firstly, it was a cardinal instance; 

 secondly, it was a miracle not worked by Christ Himself, 

 and therefore a discussion of its genuineness could offer no 

 suggestion of personal fraud, and hence would avoid in- 

 flicting gratuitous pain upon believers in it. 



This certainty that there exist many questions at present 

 insoluble, upon which it is intellectually, and indeed morally 

 wrong to assert that we have real knowledge, had long been 

 with him, but, although he had earned abundant odium by 

 openly resisting the claims of dogmatic authority, he had 



