WHAT, it may be asked, were our biologists really aiming at?—for men like Professor Huxley do not serve protoplasm for nought. They wanted a good many things, some of them more righteous than others, but all intelligible. Among the more lawful of their desires was a craving after a monistic conception of the universe. We all desire this; who can turn his thoughts to these matters at all and not instinctively lean towards the old conception of one supreme and ultimate essence as the source from which all things proceed and have proceeded, both now and ever? The most striking and apparently most stable theory of the last quarter of a century had been Sir William Grove’s theory of the conservation of energy; and yet wherein is there any substantial difference between this recent outcome of modern amateur, and hence most sincere, science—pointing as it does to an imperishable, and as such unchangeable, and as such, again, for ever unknowable underlying substance the modes of which alone change—wherein, except in mere verbal costume, does this differ from the conclusions arrived at by the psalmist? “Of old,” he exclaims, “hast Thou laid the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the work of Thy hands. They shall perish, but Thou shalt endure; yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment; as a vesture shalt Thou change them and they shall be changed; but Thou art the same, and Thy years shall have no end.” {135a} I know not what theologians may think of this passage, but from a scientific point of view it is unassailable. So again, “O Lord,” he exclaims, “Thou hast searched me out, and known me: Thou knowest my down-sitting and mine up-rising; Thou understandest my thoughts long before. Thou art about my path, and about my bed: and spiest out all my ways. For lo, there is not a word in my tongue but Thou, O Lord, knowest it altogether . . . Whither shall I go, then, from Thy Spirit? Or whither shall I go, then, from Thy presence? If I climb up into heaven Thou art there: if I go down to hell, Thou art there also. If I take the wings of the morning, and remain in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there also shall Thy hand lead me and Thy right hand shall hold me. If I say, Peradventure the darkness shall cover me, then shall my night be turned to day. Yea, the darkness is no darkness with Thee, but . . . the darkness and light to Thee are both alike.” {136a}