LIVING GOD OP LIVING NATUKE FROM THE SCIENCE SIDE. 289 



If I understand Professor Bcale, he, as well as Lord Kelvin, suggests 

 that we must suppose — we cannot do without the supposition — that 

 there is a Creator, a designing, thinking mind, determining the 

 action and the products of those different forms of bioplasm. It is 

 the same in our own body. If I understand it, the bioplasm at the 

 root of my nails has in it no different physical properties, so far as 

 can be discovered, from the bioplasm at the root of my ear, both 

 are enriched by the fluid which circulates and conveys nutriment 

 all over my body, and yet in the one case the bioplasm is working 

 night and day and producing matter of one kind, and in the other 

 case it is producing matter of another kind. Surely there is an 

 indication there, above and beyond all we know of physical nature, 

 of a creating, directing force, determining what shall be the product 

 of these different forms of bioplasmic life. I should like also to 

 thank Professor Beale for the suggestion which he has emphasised 

 this afternoon, that there is a great difference between all material 

 forces and products, and the products of what is called by him 

 vitality or vital powers ; or to refer once more to Lord Kelvin's 

 letter. Lord Kelvin disavows anything like a confusion between the 

 form of a crystal and the growth of a plant or an animal. The 

 formation of a crystal, he allows, may be described by the expression, 

 " fortuitous concourse of atoms." Those atoms or molecules are 

 drawn together, or precipitated together by the physical forces of 

 nature, and you have the crystal which is piled up by particles ah 

 extra ; but in the case of a life you have an entirely different 

 condition of things ; an entirely different process of form. You 

 have a bioplasm working from within and laying layer upon layer of 

 dead matter inside the cell, and so what is described as dead matter 

 within the cell is thrown out upon the dead matter that is outside, 

 and continually increasing in quantity so that there is no growth 

 without death. It occurred to me that Professor Beale's paper, and 

 especially his reference to that subject, explains what has been felt 

 by some to be a very difficult expression used by our Lord himself. 

 Xot very long since I heard an infidel challenge the statement which 

 Christ made, " Except the corn of wheat fall into the ground and 

 die, it abideth alone ; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit," I 

 think Professor Beale's paper, this afternoon, gives us an explanation 

 of that extremely difficult passage. It shows us that the corn of 

 wheat cannot grow without death. The gelatinous substance then 



