184 
It would seem, then, we are driven to one of two conclu- 
sions — either that certain particles of the inanimate are 
directed upon certain other particles of the inanimate for 
active formative purposes, and developed as the necessary con- 
ditions arise ; or that there is a Power independent of, and 
superior to, and directing, inanimate nature — the immediate 
Creator of life upon the globe. 
I have thus endeavoured to lay before you, as briefly as I 
could, a few further observations on the origin of life ; tending 
to show that life could not have proceeded from the inorganic, 
by and through the means of the inorganic; that the perfect 
form was the original creation ; and that existence must there- 
fore have necessarily come from outside the material body — 
not in the sense of life-productive power having been be- 
stowed on that material body for remote development — but 
direct from a source having life before its manifestation here 
as life. 
Note. — Throughout this sketch I have often used the term 
<c force ” as applied to physical phenomena. I have only done 
so in accordance with the theories on which I have been com- 
menting ; my own view being that there is only one force, 
either in our world or out of it — Mind ; the mind co-existent 
with Eternity, co-extensive with the Limitless ; and the mind 
of man : all else is motion. 
The Chairman. — I propose a vote of thanks to the author for his very 
interesting paper on a difficult and obscure subject. The subject is so obscure 
that we must expect obscurity in some parts of the paper ; but on the whole 
Mr. Wheatley has treated the main parts of the subject in a very satisfactory 
way. It is a subject that deserves discussion; and I hope it will elicit a 
good one, especially as some of the questions involved in it are now being 
brought very prominently before the scientific world. 
Mr. Brooke, V.P. — I shall be very happy to make a few brief observations 
on this paper, and to supplement them by some further observations directed 
in answer to a lecture which was delivered some little time ago in Edinburgh 
by Professor Huxley, and which has since been printed in the Fortnightly 
Review; and I shall endeavour to point out some few of the errors into which 
the author of that lecture has fallen. There are many points in the paper 
before us which would bear some remark ; but I shall only refer to one point 
to which I hardly offer an objection, but in which I think the author has 
fallen into some confusion of ideas in regard to forces. The term “ force ” is 
perpetually confounded with what force produces, as I have already pointed 
out on a former occasion. In the case of artillery, you speak of the force ot 
