have been controverting. Although I entered my protest against his iceberg
hypothesis, and have freely criticised his theoretical opinions, I most
willingly admit that the results of his unwearied devotion to the study of
those interesting phenomena with which he is so familiar have laid all his
fellow-workers under a debt of gratitude." Mr. Darwin used to speak with
admiration of Mackintosh's work, carried on as it was under considerable
difficulties.)

With respect to the main purport of your note, I hardly know what to say.
Though no evidence worth anything has as yet, in my opinion, been advanced
in favour of a living being, being developed from inorganic matter, yet I
cannot avoid believing the possibility of this will be proved some day in
accordance with the law of continuity. I remember the time, above fifty
years ago, when it was said that no substance found in a living plant or
animal could be produced without the aid of vital forces. As far as
external form is concerned, Eozoon shows how difficult it is to distinguish
between organised and inorganised bodies. If it is ever found that life
can originate on this world, the vital phenomena will come under some
general law of nature. Whether the existence of a conscious God can be
proved from the existence of the so-called laws of nature (i.e., fixed
sequence of events) is a perplexing subject, on which I have often thought,
but cannot see my way clearly. If you have not read W. Graham's "Creed of
Science," (516/3. "The Creed of Science: Religious, Moral, and Social,"
London, 1881.), it would, I think, interest you, and he supports the view
which you are inclined to uphold.


2.IX.III. THE PARALLEL ROADS OF GLEN ROY, 1841-1880.

(517/1. In the bare hilly country of Lochaber, in the Scotch Highlands,