The central Presbyterian. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1856-1908, 1881-07-27
The Materialistic Crash.

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that Society, made significant attack
upon the materialistic philosophy of the
day whose "crash," he declares elm
pends.' The address is very long. We
can give only few of its points.
He intimates that some scientific men,
notably Mr.. Huxley, have of late years
dealt too freely in hypothetical concep-
tons"
He ridicules the evolution theory of
the materialists thus:
The physical-basis-of-life argument
being accepted, some may perhaps be
able to show that ship is the result Of
the properties of the particles of iron
which constitute her physical basis; and
that the house is a consequence of the
interaction of the forces of the particles
of clay, wood, iron, etc., of which it has
been built The act of construction or
building, as well as the designer the
constructor, and the working artifcers,
being of no consequence, are entirely left
out of account. In the living thing it is
denied that any force or power exists
which directs, or changes, or controls
the relation to one another of the ma
terial particles but it is asserted that
from these the lite is evolved, and,
though, no doubt, the statement that
iron evolved the ship, or that clay, etc.,
evolved the house, would not be readily
accepted as true, it would not be in any
degree more absurd or less tenable than
the assertion that man is evolved from
the matter of which his body is consti-
tuted, or that living particle results
from the interaction of the forces of the
matter of which it consists. y
&c 1t would, indeed, be difficult in any
other department of human knowledge to
find anything to equal the extravaganza
of the hypothesis recently advanced con-
corning living matter and its properties.
We are told that paticles of matter out
Of which are evolved things utterly I'M
like one another are, nevertheless, iden-
teal. The stuff which develops an oak,
that which becomes cabbage, that which
gives origin to a dog, and the living mat
ter which represents man at an early
stage, are all said to be Identical
Because, forsooth, two portions of matter
resemble one another closely in appear
ance, in the elements which enter into
their composition, in the way in which
they increase, divide, and so forth, they
are identical. We may actually see
matter developing into a man, and matter
developing into a dog -; and, because we
cannot distinguish one from the other by
physical investigation, we are expected to
assent to the dictum that they are identi-
"a 10 IL IL
who SO terribly abuse the use of the Ian
guage they employ"
He declares that to assert that life is
a property of protoplasm, just as polarity
is property of magnet, is utterly un-
reasonable. You cannot devitalize and
revitalize the same matter; but you can
magnetic and demagnetize the same piece
of steel many times"
This is the way he explains much of
the reception of the science falsely so
called Of the day:
'' 1t is obvious that people generally
cannot investigate for themselves the
several minute points which may estab-
fish a scientific proposition. The public
must take much upon trust, and are apt
to infer that, if man holding recog-
nized scientific position asserts that an
animal is a machine and that all its
actions are mechanical, he must have
very good reasons for laying before them
proposition which seems to be so pre-
posterous that no one would venture to
PROFOUND it unless he had actually proved
it to be true. So unlearned persons, hay
ing much faith, go their ways, and an
nounce to their friends and neighbors
that. they, as well as all other animals,
are machines. Their own conviction
that all machines are made in pieces,
which are afterwards put together, and
that no animal is so made, does not dis
turb their faith. Authority has spoken.
They must believe, and not inquire &C
cept upon trust, but not criticise
And he concludes with the following
propositions as the results of a true
SCIENCE
1.-The phenomena Of living matter are
not due to the properties of the matter.
Vital actions are Of an order absolutely
distinct from any known physical &C.
tons
"Life-force or power has not been and
cannot be evolved in any way from mat
ter only, nor is it consequence of
changes occurring in matter; but on the