LECTURE ON AGNOSTICISM. 
71 
bind living to dead matter. In a like manner, dead or lifeless 
bioplasm may be converted into living. Thus, I may indulge in 
a fish dinner and transubstantiate dead fish into living man, and 
if I were to make myself accessible to them, the fish would re¬ 
turn the compliment and demonstrate our common nature by 
turning my dead bioplasm into living fish. 
As to the laws which govern life, scientists are divided into 
two classes—vitalists and physicists—or those that relegate the 
properties of life to a vital force independent of physical force, 
and those that assume that the physical forces are the only forces 
in the universe. It is, it seems to me, illogical to infer that the 
vital forces are independent of and altogether opposed to physical 
forces. A living organism builds itself up in accordauce with 
natural laws, and avails itself equally of inorganic matter and 
physical force. Bioplasm appropriates and assimilates matter, 
but in doing this it does not necessarily interfere with capillarity, 
chemism, gravitation and osmoses. 
On the other hand, it is too soon to put forth force and mat¬ 
ter in living organisms in the same causal connection which has 
long been accepted for force and matter in inorganic bodies. But 
you will ask, with Huxley, “ What justification is there for the 
assumption of the existence in the living matter cf a something 
which has no correlate or representative in the not living matter? 
—what better philosophical status has ‘ vitality ’ in the case of 
bioplasm than £ aquosity ’ in the case of water ?” To this I will 
put another question : What makes this matter do things while 
it is alive, which it cannot do when it is dead? Has the chem¬ 
ist or physicist ever created anything which manifests the powers 
of assimilation, growth, movement and reproduction ? In un¬ 
wrapping an Egyptian mummy, there was found a sprig of wheat 
which had lain with the body, it was said, three thousand years. 
This was planted to see if it had life, and lo ! it sprouted and 
brought forth wheat—a resurrection of life buried for three 
! 
thousand years. What a theme for our contemplation ! 
No; physical science has not revealed the true nature of life. 
All that we know is that life is an heirloom bequeathed from 
parent to offspring. In the language of Paul, “ In Him we live 
and move and have our being.” 
