151 
doctrine of ascent, we are told that certain orders have fallen 
out ; but we need a scientific account of action of environ- 
ment to account for this falling out, — and such an account is 
not forthcoming.* 
9. One of the great leaders in regard to scientific thought 
recently expressed himself after this manner : — “ The concep- 
tion of the life of one of the higher animals as the summation 
of the lives of a cell aggregate, brought into harmonious action 
by a co-ordinate machinery formed by some of these cells, 
constitutes a permanent acquisition to physiological science. 
Seeing that the actions called vital, so far as we have any 
means of knowing, are nothing but changes of place of particles 
of matter, molecular physics are looked to to achieve the 
analysis of the living protoplasm itself into a molecular 
mechanism. Living matter differs from other matter in degree 
and not in kind ; the microcosm repeats the macrocosm ; and 
one chain of causation connects the nebulous original of suns 
and planetary systems with the protoplasmic foundations of 
life and organisation.” f 
And so the astrology of the sixteenth century is “ science 33 
in the latter portion of the nineteenth ! Surely extremes have 
here met ! Identical in idea and in expression is the language 
they severally suggest. But the idea, resuscitated, and ex- 
pressed with all the force of novelty, was readily caught up, 
echoed and re-echoed among the spheres scientific thus, “ the 
powers that act on the living body are the same as those 
which act on every portion of the globe, its materials and 
inhabitants,” J — and so on. And, to repeat words already used, 
these theories attracted many ardent minds at the time. 
10. In reference to the same subject an anonymous author 
had already written, “ This large view of evolution only shifts 
the original plan farther back, and dates the Creators invention 
from the era of the primordial nebula — or, mayhap, from all 
eternity ; it only reveals the mystic lines of life — the secret 
position of all things imprinted on the flaming winds of chaos. 
If, then, we are told that the fervent haze of atoms composing 
the primitive nebula contained the promise and potency of all 
terrestrial life, we are still face to face with a vast design. § 
It is the great task of the evolutionist of the future to trace 
out the development of life on the earth, and show how it 
* Science and Religion, p. 158. 
f Transactions of the International Medical Congress, 1881, vol. i. pp. 99, 
100 . 
t See Critique on Criticisms on the Simplicity of Life, p. 41. 
§ The New Truth and the Old Faith. By a Scientific Layman. 1880, 
p. 86. 
M 2 
