I70 LUCK, OR CUNNING? 



commonly given, still it is a new departure of the 

 same essential character as any other — ^that is to say, 

 though there he much new there is much, not to say 

 more, old along with it. We shrink from it as from' any 

 other change to the unknown, and also perhaps from 

 an instinctive sense that the fear of death is a sine qvA 

 non for physical and moral progress, but the fear is 

 like all else in life, a substantial thing which, if its 

 foundations be dug about, is found to rest on a super- 

 stitious basis. 



Where, and on what principle, are the dividing 

 lines between living and non-living to be drawn ? 

 All attempts to draw them hitherto have ended in 

 deadlock and disaster ; of this M. Vianna De Lima, in 

 his " Expose Sommaire des Theories transformistes de 

 Lamarck, Darwin, et Haeckel," * says that all attempts 

 to trace "tine ligne de demarcation nette et profonde 

 entre la matiere vivante et la matidre inerte" have 

 broken down.t " H y a i^n reste de vie dans le 

 cadavre" says Diderot, J speaking of the more gradual 

 decay of the body after an easy natural death, than 

 after a sudden and violent one ; and so Buffon begins 

 his first volume by saying that " we can descend, by 

 almost imperceptible degrees, from the most perfect 

 creature to the most formless matter^ — from the most 

 highly organised matter to the most entirely inorganic 

 substance." § 



Is the line to be so drawn as to admit any of the 



* Paris, Delagrave, 1886. t Page 60. 



J (Euvres completes, torn. ix. p. 422. Paris, Gamier fr&res, 1875. 

 ; § Hist. Nat, torn. i. p. 13, 1749, quoted Evol Old and New, p. 108. 



