83 
formed without wondrous skill in optics and acoustics. But even Professor 
Huxley admits that there is a something which he cannot get over, hut 
which would have led him out of the slough. He says : — 
“ We may by-and-by be able to see our way as clearly from the con- 
stituents of water to the properties of water, as we are now able to 
deduce the operations of a watch from the form of its parts and the manner 
in which they are put together.” 
Now what does a watch consist of ? So much brass, so much steel, per- 
haps so much gold — but that is only in the ornamental part. There you 
have the protoplasm. (Laughter.) But I ask you, is that all a watch 
contains ? You say “ Yes ; all that science can teach you is that a watch 
contains so many particles of iron, and zinc, and copper.” But then these 
things are very cunningly arranged together ; there is a most marvellous 
cunning in the arrangement of all the parts ; and I find the watch does 
for me that which the earliest of the human race had no knowledge of at all 
— it keeps accurate time for me by taking advantage not only of molecular 
forces, but of certain laws of mechanics which it took the human race a very 
long time to discover. Some one had the wit to discover that a pendulum 
vibrated pretty evenly in seconds of time, according to its length, and when 
he wanted to get rid of the burdensome pendulum, he found that a small 
fine spring of steel which would bend backwards and forwards, would answer 
the purpose as well, and that this, in conjunction with certain wheels and 
other works, could be made the means of measuring the time just as accu- 
rately as by the pendulum. The watch therefore has something in it beyond 
the mere protoplasm of iron, zinc, and copper. I must not call it vitality — but 
it has something in it which does not at all belong to molecular action. And 
it has a great deal more : there is impressed upon it a certain amount of 
human wisdom and thought and experience, all, as it were, embodied and 
contained in it. Am I then to make no inquiry about these things, but put 
them down at once as mere lunar politics ? Is not this as really a true 
subject of science or philosophy as anything about protoplasms and carbon 
or hydrogen or nitrogen ? But Professor Huxley might have gone further. 
He says : — 
“ Why should 1 vitality ’ hope for a better fate than the other 1 itys ’ which 
have disappeared since Martinus Scriblerus accounted for the operation of 
the meat-jack by its inherent 1 meat-roasting quality,’ and scorned the 
‘ materialism ’ of those who explained the turning of the spit by a certain 
mechanism worked by the draught of the chimney ?” 
Well, it may be that Professor Huxley is too refined a specimen of human 
intellect to admit the jack as a witness ; but there is the same kind of power 
displayed in the mechanism of the jack, the same evidence of human thought 
and invention, mastering the mere material elements and making them work 
in order to save a man the trouble of turning the spit which turns the meat 
he desires to roast. By means of a little iron and brass and the smoke of 
the chimney he is enabled to have the work done which otherwise he would 
G 2 
