bodied life, the credit of the operation belongs not to the life
itself but to its protoplasmic embodiment, is much the same as to
suppose that when a tailor, dressed in clothes of his own making, makes
a second suit of clothes, this latter is the product not of the tailor
himself but of the clothes he is wearing.

Thus, irrespectively of whatever grounds there may be for believing that
life still _does_, it is incontestable that life once _did_, exist apart
from protoplasm; and that protoplasm both may and continually does exist
apart from what is commonly understood by life, must be obvious to every
one who is aware that protoplasm is the substance of which all plants
and all animals are composed, and has observed also that plants and
animals are in the habit of dying. That matter and life are inseparably
connected cannot, therefore, it would seem, be asserted except in total
disregard of the teachings both of reason and observation, and 'the
popular conception of life as a something which works through matter but
is independent of it,' would seem to be as true as it is popular. If
the only choice allowed to us be between 'the old notion of an Archaeus
governing and directing blind matter,' and the new conception of life as
the product of a certain disposition of material molecules, the absolute
certainty that the latter conception is wrong, may be fairly urged as
equivalent to certainty, equally absolute, that the former notion is
right.

How far soever it may be true that, as Professor Huxley says, 'the
progress of physical science means, and has in all ages meant, the
extension of the province of matter and causation,' it is certainly not
true that, as he proceeds to predict, the same province will ever be
extended sufficiently to banish from the region of human thought not
'spontaneity' simply, but likewise 'spirit.' In one direction at least,
limits are clearly discernible which scientific investigation need not
hope to overleap. How much soever we may eventually discover of the
changes whereby inorganic matter becomes gradually adapted for the
reception of life, physical science can never teach us what or whence is
the life that eventually takes possession of the finished receptacle.
Possibly we at length may, as Professor Huxley doubts not that we
by-and-by shall, see how it is that the properties peculiar to water
have resulted from the properties peculiar to the gases whose junction
constitutes water; and si