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“You may show what atomic groupings are necessary in order that life may emerge out of matter, sentience out of life, or intellect out of sentience; but you cannot thereby reduce life, let alone sentient life and intellectual life, to terms of matter; you have only succeeded in tabulating the material coefficients of things which are not themselves material. I do not mean that Mr Russell would not be able to put up a case against this argument; I only complain that he simplified his task by pretending to misunderstand what the argument was; by assuming that it was merely physical when as a matter of fact it is metaphysical.” — Ronald Knox
You may show what atomic groupings are necessary in order that life may emerge out of matter, sentience out of life, or intellect out of sentience; but you cannot thereby reduce life, let alone sentient life and intellectual life, to terms of matter; you have only succeeded in tabulating the material coefficients of things which are not themselves material. I do not mean that Mr Russell would not be able to put up a case against this argument; I only complain that he simplified his task by pretending to misunderstand what the argument was; by assuming that it was merely physical when as a matter of fact it is metaphysical.