The New Orleans crescent. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1866-1869, 1869-02-28

life. singular inward laboratory, which
possess, will dissolve certain portion of the
modified protoplasm the solution so formed
will pass into my veins and the subtle intiu-
ences to which it will then be subjected will
convert the dead protoplasm into living prot
oplasm, and transubstantiate sheep into man.
Nor is this all. If digestion were thing to
be trifed with, might sup upon lobster, and
the matter of life of the crustacean would I'M
dergo the same wonderful metamorphosis into
humanity. And were to return to my own
place by sea, and undergo shipwreck, the
crustacea might, and probably would, return
the compliment, and demonstrate our CON-
mon nature by turning my protoplasm into
living lobster. Or, if nothing better were to
be had might supply my wants with mere
bread, and I,should find the protoplasm of the
wheat-plant to be convertible into man, with
no more trouble than that of the sheep, and
with far less, fancy, than that of the lob
ster."
After some further remarks, Professor Hux-
ley arrives at the position that, if scientific
language is to possess definite and constant
Specification, he is bound to regard all vital
action as the result of the molecular forces Of
the protoplasm which displays it; "and if
So" he continues, cit must be true, in the
same sense and to the same extent, that the
thoughts to which am now giving utterance,
and your thoughts regarding them, are the
expression of molecular changes in the mat
ter of life which is the source of other vital
phenomena" Thus far, as he believes. the
memorable logic of scientific facts compel him
to go, and he is aware that in accepting such
conclusions he places his feet on "the first
rung of ladder which, in most peoples es-
timation, is the reverse of Jacobs and leads
to the antipodes of heaven" And this brings
him to discuss "the limits of philosophical
inquiry" and to defend modern physiology
from the charge that it is identical with
gross and brutal materialism." Its teach
ings, he holds, are as far from the superstitu-
ton Of q blind necessarianism as they are
from the the superstition of miraculous or
Tpiritual spontaneity. "For, after ell, he
says, "what do we know of this terrible mat
ter, except rs a name for the unknown and
hypothetical cause of states of our own con-
sciousness? And what do we know of that
spilit over whose threatened extinction
by matter great lamantation is arising, like
that which was heard at the death of Pan,
except that it is also a name for an unknown
and hypothetical cause, or condition, of states
of consciousness? In other words, matter and
spirit are but names for the imaginary SUBJ
strata of natural phenomena. And what is
the dire necessity aud iron law under which
men groan9 Truly, most gratuitously in
vented bugbears. I suppose if there be an
iron law, it is that of grayitation and if
there be a physical necessity, it. is that a
stone, unsupported, must fall to the ground.
But what is all we really know and can know
about the latter phenomenon? Simply, that,
in all human experience, stones have
fallen to the ground under these conditions;
that we have not the smallest reason for be-
lieving that any stone so circumstanced will
not fall to the ground, and that We have, on
the contrary, every reason to believe that it
will so fall. 1t is very convenient to indicate
that all the conditions of belief have been ful-
filed in this case by calling the statement
that unsupported stones will fall to the
ground law of nature. But when, as COM
monty happens, we change will into must, we
introduce an idea of necessity which most
assuredly does not lie in the observed facts,
and has no warranty that can discover else
where. For my part utterly repudiate and
anathematize the intruder. Tact know, and
law know; but what is this necessity, save
an empty shadow of my own minds throw
ing? But, if it is certain that we can haven no
knowledge of the nature of either matter or
spirit, and that the notion of necessity is
something illegitimstely thrust into the per-
fectly legitimate conception of law, the ma
terialistic position that there is nothing in the
world but matter, force and necessity, is as
utterly devoid Of justification as the most
baseless of theological dogmas. The funda-
mental doctrines of materialism, like those of
spiritualism and most other 'isms, lie out
side the limits of philosophical inquiry"
Professor Huxley thirAs that there is no
danger of mankind being depraved by the
progress of their wisdom in any direction
and, as, in respect to the material world, the
spiritualistic Technology is utterly bar
rem, he argues that for the interests of SCI
ence "the materialistic Technology is in
every way to be preferred" and he predicts
that "the further science advances the more
extensively and consistently will the phe-
nomens of nature be represented by material
istic formula and symbols"
Notwithstanding all this, it may be ques-
toned whether there is any philosophy, in the
strict sense of the word, under the method
which proposes simply to observe, note, and
generalize the phenomena Of nature. Compile
tried it to exhaustion, and ne was obliged, in
order to keep clear of metaphysics and to
give consistency to his system, to eliminate
from nature cause, law and the Divine will.
Philosophy, after all, cannot afford to ignore
the infinite which underlies our subtlest re-
searches into nature, and the absolute which
is subsumed in all our conceptions of the rela.
tive. II, in one way of thinking, thought nay
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