gent effect ; it cannot purpose, foresee, organize, or choose. Pro- fessor Joule may determine througli what space a weight must fall to produce a given amount of heat; but can he tell how far it must fall to write a poem, or produce "a Madonna ? Such a cause has no tendency to produce such an effect. And to suppose it to operate from eternity, is only to multiply eternally, nothing by nothing, it is nothing still.
If every man recognizes the absurdity of referring all the works of human ingenuity and intellect to unintelligent, physical force, how much greater is the absurdity of referring to blind force the immeasurably more stupendous, complicated, and ordered works of God, everywl'iere indicative of purpose, foresight, and choice. Of this absurdity Materialism is guilty. It J;eaclies, in its modern form, that to carbonic acid, water, and ammonia, with the molecular forces they contain, is the causal efficiency to which all organisms from the fungus to man, and all vital and mental phenomena, are to be referred. This is the doctrine elaborately proposed and de- fended in Professor Huxley's paper on the " Physical Basis of Life." That paper is devoted to establishing two propositions. The first is, " That all animal and vegetable organisms ai'e essen- tially alike in power, in form, and in substance ; and the second, That all vital and intellectual functions are the properties of the molecular dispositions and changes of the material basis (proto- plasm) of which the various animals and vegetables consist." ^ He even intimates, after referring to a clock which marks the time, and the phases of the moon, as an illustration of the vital and intellec- tual phenomena of the universe, as produced by molecular motions and combinations, " that the existing world lay potentially in the cosmic vapor ; and that a sufficient intelligence could, from a knowledge of the properties of the molecules of that vapor, have predicted, say the state of the Fauna of Britain in 1869, with as much certainty as one can say what will happen to the vapor of the breath in a cold winter's day." ^ On this it is obvious to re- mark, in the first place, that it is not one whit in advance of the theory of Epicurus propounded more than two thousand years ago. As the whole mass of thinking men have turned their backs on that theory from that day to this, it is not probable that the reas- sertion of it, however confidently made, will have much effect upon
1 As regards Proloplnsm in relation to Professor Huxley's Essay on the Physical Batii of Life, b,v James Hutchison Stirling, F. R. C. S., LL. D. Edit. New Haven, p. 15.
2 See Life, Matter, and Mind, by Lionel S. Beale, M. B., F. R. S., London, 1870, p. 17. Dr. Beale quotes from a paper by Professor Huxley in the first number of the Academy, p,
282 PART I. — THEOLOGY. [Ch. HI. — Anti-Theibm.
men who have either heads or hearts. In the second place, it gives no rational account of the origin of the universe, and of the won- ders which it contains. It violates the fundamental intuitive truth that every effect must have an adequate cause, inasmuch as it re- fers intelligent effects to unintelligent causes ; all the libraries in the world, for example, to " the properties of the molecules," of carbonic acid, water, and ammonia.
2. A second truth of Reason which Materialism contradicts is that an infinite succession of effects is as unthinkable as a self-sup- porting chain of an infinite number of links. The modern doc- trine is that lifeless matter never becomes living except when brought into contact with previous living matter. It is the office of the living plant to take up the dead elements of the inorganic world and imbue them with life. The plant, therefore, must either precede protoplasm, which is impossible, as it is composed of pro- toplasm ; or the protoplasm must precede the plant, which is equally impossible, because the plant alone, in the first instance, can make protoplasm ; or there must be an infinite succession. That is, an infinite number of causeless effects, which is no less impossible. The doctrine of spontaneous generation, or of life originating out of dead matter, is repudiated by the most advanced advocates of the modern form of MateriaHsm. Professor Huxley has done the cause of truth good service by his able refutation of that doctrine.! Whatever may be the ultimate decision of the question as to the origin of life, it is enough for the present that the modern advocates of Materialism admit that living matter can only come from matter already alive. This admission, it is now urged, is fatal to their theory, as it necessitates the assumption of an eternal effect. If dead matter can only be made alive by pre- vious living matter, there must be a source of life outside of mat- ter, or life never could have begun.
Materialisyn inconsistent with the Facts of Experience. It is generally admitted that in nature, i. e., in the external woi'ld, there are four distinct spheres, or, as they are sometimes called, planes of existence. First, the common chemical com- pounds, which constitute the mineral kingdom ; second, the vege- table kingdom ; third, the irrational animal world ; and fourth, Man. It is admitted that all the resources of science are incompe-
1 See his Address as President of the British Association, reported in the London Athe- nceum, September 17th, 1870. The little that is necessary to say on the subject of sponta- neous generation in such a work as this, is reserved until the question concerning the origin of man comes up for consideration.