This is as true of plants and of animals as of men; and there is no reason for supposing that when these die their principle of life is ended. It probably has reached a crisis, which consists in the putting on of new forms and ascending into a higher order of organized existence.
We have all read in our "Vicar of Wakefield" the famous speech made by the venerable and learned Ephraim Jenkinson to good Dr. Primrose: "The cosmogony, or creation of the world, has puzzled philosophers in all ages. Sanchoniathon, Manetho, Berosus, and Ocellus Lucanus have all attempted it in vain," etc. But we hardly expected to have this question of cosmogony reopened by an eminent scientist in an address to the British Association. What "Sanchoniathon, Manetho, Berosus, and Ocellus Lucanus have all attempted in vain" Professor Tyndall has not only discussed before a body of men learned in the physical sciences, but has done it in such a manner as to rouse two continents to a new interest in the question. One party has immediately accused him of irreligion and infidelity, while another has declared his statements innocent if not virtuous. But the question which has been least debated is, What has the professor really said? or, Has he said anything?
The celebrated sentence which has occasioned this excitement is as follows:--
"Abandoning all disguise, the confession that I feel bound to make before you is, that I prolong the vision backward across the boundary of the experimental evidence, and discern in that matter which we in our ignorance, and notwithstanding our professed reverence for its Creator, have hitherto covered with opprobrium, the promise and potency of every form and quality of life."
Does he, then, declare himself a materialist? A materialist is one who asserts everything which exists to be matter, or an affection of matter. What, then, is matter, and how is that to be defined? The common definition of matter is, that which is perceived by the senses, or the substance underlying sensible phenomena. By means of the senses we perceive such qualities or phenomena as resistance, form, color, perfume, sound. Whenever we observe these phenomena, whenever we see, hear, taste, touch, or smell, we attribute the affections thus excited to an external substance, which we call _matter_. But we are aware of other phenomena which are _not_ perceived by the senses,--- such as thought, love, and will. We are as certain of their existence as we are of sensible phenomena. I am as sure of the reality of love as I am of the whiteness of chalk. By a law of our mind, whenever we perceive sensible phenomena, we necessarily attribute them to a substance outside of ourselves, which we call matter. And by another law, or the same law, whenever we perceive the phenomena of consciousness, we necessarily attribute them to a substance which we call soul, mind, or spirit. All that we know of matter, and all that we know of soul, is their phenomena, and as these are entirely different, we are obliged to assume that matter and mind are different. None of the qualities or attributes of matter belong to mind, none of those of mind to matter.