1 882.] 
Force and Matter , 
665 
body.” It is a fair presumption that when man emerged 
from the animal Homo sapiens there was ingrafted in his 
intelligence (whatever its character) the religious sentiment. 
However crude it may have been, it is the power which has 
transformed our race and made it something more than 
animal. Speaking of Atheism, M. Quatrefages says : — 
“Obliged in my course of instruction to review all human 
races, I have sought Atheism in the lowest as well as in the 
highest, I have nowhere met with it except in individuals, or 
in more or less limited schools, such as those which existed 
in Europe during the last century, or which may still be 
seen at the present day” {Ibid., p. 482). He further says : — 
“ In these researches I have proceeded and formed my con- 
clusions, not as a thinker, a believer, or as a philosopher, 
who are all more or less under the influence of an ideal 
which they accept or oppose, but exclusively as a Naturalist , 
whose chief aim is to seek for and state facts” (p. 483). 
“ Force and Matter” is the title of Dr. Buchner’s work; 
had its title been Matter and Energy it would have been 
more in consonance with scientific ideas. Had the argu- 
ment been conducted in a spirit of inquiry as to the existence 
of a formative power in nature and the confutation of a 
received idea, i.e., the creation of the Universe by God, no one 
could have objected, for then the author would have stated his 
problem and enforced it with such scientific acumen, philo- 
sophical reasonings, and common-sense illustrations as he 
might be acquainted with. When he begins by saying, 
without adducing any arguments in support of his theorem, 
that those who talk of a “creative power” “ are ignorant of 
the first and most simple principle found by experience 
and the contemplation of nature;” and in the same page 
(p. 80) he also says, “ So the absurdities attending a belief 
in an individual creative power, &c.” To quote the whole 
of such expletives scattered throughout the work would fill 
too large a space ; those adduced must suffice for examples. 
They who are curious in such matters can consult the work, 
and I venture to say will be satisfied ad nauseam. Any person 
who really consulted the work with the desire to profit by 
the argument would by their continual occurrence not only 
be filled with disgust, the idea would also be present that 
the author, being wanting in reasoning power, endeavours to 
make up his deficiencies by inventive and dogmatic assump- 
tions. Even when passages of any force occur they are 
marred by the same fault. By the course he has pursued, 
Dr. Buchner must think that his assertions and assumptions 
are superior to all scientific, philosophical, and common- 
VOL. iv. (third series.) 2 x 
