produced _by heat!_ In the other we read the following propositions:
"Matter is eternal." "The action of a _First Cause_ is useless and
irrational--_it is chimerical!_" Again: "It is absolutely impossible to
explain the existence of a creative power"; and "an immaterial being is
not necessary for the production of life." And, "to attribute the
phenomena of life to an immaterial soul, is to substitute a chimerical
being for the hypothesis of machinists." "Materialists have done good
service to physiology by eliminating metaphysical entities from this
study. The idea of the soul, as an immaterial power, is a mere
abstraction; in fact, nothing of the kind exists."

Unhappily these principles, subversive of all morality, are not advanced
by the aspirants only to academical distinctions; most certainly the
students would not advance these theories had they not learned them from
their masters. Hence we find one of the Professors of the University of
France, in Bordeaux, asserting, that "even among civilized nations moral
ideas are so relative, contradictory, and dependent on exterior and
individual relations, that it is impossible, and will always be
impossible, to find an absolute definition of goodness."--p. 38, _note_.
And the "Medical Review" published the discourse pronounced by one of
the physicians of the Faculty of Paris, M. Verneuil, over the grave of a
member of their learned body, Dr. Foucher, in which we find the
following:

"'We are reproached with believing with the sages of old, that
Fate is blind, and as such presides over our lot. And why
should we not believe it?... Humbling and sad as is this
admission, still we must make it: imperceptible elements of the
great social organization appearing upon this earth as living
beings, fragments of matter agitated by a spirit, we are born,
we live, and we die, unconscious of our destiny, playing our
part without any precise notion of the end, and in the midst of
the darkness which covers our origin and our end, having only
one consolation--the love of our fellow-man.

"'This simple philosophy alone,' M. Verneuil continues,
'assuages our grief and ends by drying our tears. By the side
of the half-open tomb we ask, whether he whom it contains
served the good cause without deceit.... If, by his
intelligence or his kindness of heart, he labored in the great
work, we say he has paid his part