149 
8. Among “ scientific ” explanations of life and its pheno- 
mena which at the present day have taken the place of those 
accepted in a “superstitious” and credulous age, are the 
following : — “Vital actions are reduced to molecular move- 
ments of the protoplasm of which the body is composed. The 
properties of living beings are — as much dependent upon the 
mere qualities and nature of the material aggregate which 
displays them, as the properties of a metal or the properties 
of a crystal. — Our future Shakespeares are potential in the 
fires of the sun.” In other words, life is no more than a 
form of energy or motion ; the vital forces of the organism 
merely correlates of the ordinary physical forces ; the pheno- 
mena of the organism the result of transformations of the 
heat which it receives from the sun and energy stored up in 
its food.* 
But then, and more recently, this sentence occurs : — 
“ There is no agreement at present respecting the real heat 
of the sun ; what is certain, if we take as our basis the labours 
of a distinguished f scientist/ j* lately deceased, is, that none of 
the chemical compounds known to us on earth can exist on 
the surface of the sun.” An eminent professor writes : — “I 
do not know what to make of the corona. Its spectrum 
proves that a considerable portion of light comes from some 
exceedingly rare form of gaseous matter, which cannot be 
identified with anything known to terrestrial chemistry.” J 
Therefore, if the views quoted be correct, the future Shake- 
speares potential must, according to science, have bodies in 
material different from their antetype, and consist physically 
of compounds unknown on earth ; their potentiality depend 
upon solar heat, regarding which nothing is certain beyond 
the fact that it exists. Verily we have already reached a 
triumph of “ science.” 
According to a very distinguished modern author, “If we 
admit that all parts of the organisation and instincts offer 
individual differences, — that there is a struggle for existence, 
leading to the preservation of profitable deviations of struc- 
tures or instincts, and that gradations in the state of per- 
fection of each organ may have existed, each good of its 
kind,” — then, in that case, and on those suppositions, “the 
difficulty, at first sight insuperably great, cannot then be 
considered real;” “that the more complex organs and instincts 
have been perfected, not by means superior to, though 
* Life and its Physical Basis , by H. Alleyne Nicholson. Trans., vol. xiv. 
pp. 281 to 286. 
t Henri St. Clair Deville. — See Knowledge , Dec. 8, 18S2, p. 454. 
t Professor Young, Popular Astronomy , by Newcomb, p. 278. 
T0L. XVII. M 
