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from outward manipulation — from the chisel of the artist : 
whereas, simply by means of its own inherent powers of ex- 
foliation, he would have the marble throw off the superfluous 
chips, and stand confessed a thing of beauty, without one 
trace of the rude block whence it sprang. 
But may we not go further, and say, allow the faculty of 
vitality to the physical, allow the chemist's combinations to 
become life under his hands — he is working with the brightest 
and sharpest of tools, the human intellect ? He is wielding the 
mightiest of all energies — mind. He is liviny power. He is 
exercising intelligence to work up matter to a state he never 
saw it assume of its own unaided energy ; and of the past occur- 
rence of which he has not the smallest particle of evidence. 
He has thrown the bright mantle of life around the fairy form 
in her lily bell. And what of that ? He brought intelligence 
to bear ; he applied mind to effect his purpose. If by the 
force of his own mind he thinks to bring life out of the insen- 
tient, why, since life is, should he not rationally conclude that 
mind had anticipated him ? He says, no ; the productive 
power is bound up in matter; and even if mind created 
matter, a law of vital production was impressed upon it ; 
and there lurks life. Whether life is on the globe without 
the help of mind, or whether mind bestowed it conditional^ 
on matter, his own intellect should in either case tell him that 
his endeavours are vain ; for if it came without the aid of 
mind — fortuitously — he labours in the dark; there is not a 
shadow to guide him : it came without design, and aimless 
■ — an accident, an aberration. And if, on the contrary, im- 
pressed by mind on matter, it can only be made apparent 
according to the Will which impressed it, and not through 
the instrumentality of his own efforts of discovery. It is from 
that Will alone we can ascertain how the living appeared. 
The Supreme Will, being beyond the reach of human in- 
dustry, perseverance, and sagacity, philosophy and natural 
history must be baffled. If we admit mind, we take life out 
of the province of the material; therefore no study of the 
material can aid our researches, beyond the germinative 
powers with which our senses make us acquainted : I mean, 
that we cannot add to the known causes of germination, that 
creative something which established those causes. 
If life-giving capacity were bestowed on matter by the 
Creator, the appearance of vitality would still be to us an 
affair of the merest chance; for we have not the faintest, most 
transitory, ray of light whereby to elucidate the hypothesis. 
Unconscious matter, profoundly ignorant of the effective pro- 
cess, our consultation of it is vain. Shall we inquire of the 
