man and the other animals are identical with the protoplasm of the nettle; and he, not less than they, at first consisted of nothing more than an aggregation of such corpuscles. Protoplasm is their common constituent; in protoplasm they have their common origin. At last, as at first, all that lives, and every part of all that lives, is but-nucleated or unnucleated, modified or unmodified-protoplasm.

This series of assertions culminates in a dogma still more astounding. Protoplasm, from being "the basis," becomes "the matter of life." Apart from this matter, life is unknown. The "phenomena of life," however vast and varied, exhibit neither force nor faculty that is not derived from the chemical constituents of its material "basis." All the activities of lifevegetable, animal, human; physical, intellectual, religious-arise solely (we are told) from "the arrangement of the molecules of ordinary matter." What reason is there, for instance, why thought should not be termed a property of thinking protoplasm, just as congelation is a property of water, or centrifugience of gas? Professor Huxley protests that he is aware of We call, he says, the several phenomena which are peculiar to water "the properties of water, and do not hesitate to believe

no reason.

that in some way or other they result from the properties of the component elements of water. We do not assume that something called aquosity entered into and took possession of the oxide of hydrogen as soon as it was formed, and then guided the aqueous particles to their places in the facets of the crystal or among the leaflets of the hoar-frost." Why, then, "when carbonic acid, water, and ammonia disappear, and in their place, under the influence of preexisting protoplasm, an equivalent weight of the matter of life makes its appearance," should we assume, in the living matter, the existence of "a something which has no representative or correlative in the unliving matter that gave rise to it"? Why imagine that into the newly formed hydro-nitrogenised oxide of carbon a something called vitality entered and took possession? "What better philosophic status has vitality than aquosity?"

These questions, as will presently appear, present no difficulty. They admit of answers too complete to leave room for further question. The only difficulty is that which presents itself when we attempt to determine Professor Huxley's relation to them. For incredible as it must seem to those not acquainted with the facts, the propositions above cited are at once

the subject of his affirmation and of his denial. Dr. Stirling concludes his refutation of them in a sentence to which Professor Huxley has attempted a reply. The sentence is this:

"In short, the whole position of Mr. Huxley, that all organisms consist alike of the same life-matter, which life-matter is, for its part, due only to chemistry, must be 'pronounced untenable,'— -nor less untenable the materialism he would found on it." 1

And this is the reply:

"The paragraph contains three distinct assertions concerning my views, and just the same number of utter misrepresentations of them." The first [that "all organisms consist alike of the same life-matter"] "turns on the ambiguity of the word 'same ""; the second [that this "life-matter is due only to chemistry"] "is in my judgment absurd, and certainly I have never said anything resembling it; while as to Number 3, one great object of my Essay was to show that what is called 'materialism' has no sound philosophical basis."3

2

Longmans,

1 "As Regards Protoplasm." By James Hutchinson Stirling, F.R.C.S., and LL.D. Edinburgh. 1872, p. 58.

2.666

"One great object of my Essay,' says Mr. Huxley! Yes, truly; but what of the other-great, greater, and greatest object? 'Utter misrepresentation!' The only utter misrepresentation concerned here is- Pshaw ! the whole thing is beneath speech." ("As Regards Protoplasm," ut sup., p. 59.)

3 "Yeast," in "Critiques and Addresses." Macmillan, 1873, p. 90.

In rejoinder, Dr. Stirling cites "Mr. Huxley's own phrases" to prove that the alleged ambiguity does not exist: "There is such a thing as a physical basis or matter of life;"

is

or "the physical basis or matter of life." There a single physical basis of life," and through its unity, "the whole living world" is pervaded by "a threefold unity "-" namely a unity of power or faculty, a unity of form, and a unity of substantial composition."

On the second point; that "life-matter" is "due only to chemistry," Dr. Stirling is “pleased to think that Mr. Huxley has now come to consider such an opinion 'absurd,'" but repeats that "he has always, and everywhere, for all that, described his 'life-matter as due to chemistry,'" and adds, "Here are a few examples: "

"If the properties of water may be properly said to result from the nature and disposition of its component molecules, I can find no intelligible ground for refusing to say that the properties of protoplasm result from the nature and disposition of its molecules.'

"Is it possible for words more definitely to convey the statement that the properties of water and protoplasm are precisely on the same level, and that as the former are of molecular (physical, chemical) origin, so are the latter?

Again, after having told us that protoplasm is carbonic acid, water, and ammonia, 'which certainly possess no properties but those of ordinary matter,' he proceeds to speak as follows:

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'Carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen are all lifeless bodies. Of these, carbon and oxygen unite in certain proportions, and under certain conditions, to give rise to carbonic acid; hydrogen and oxygen produce water; nitrogen and hydrogen give rise to ammonia. These new compounds, like the elementary bodies of which they are composed, are lifeless.'

"So far then, surely, I am allowed to say that these new compounds are due to chemistry. Observe now what follows:

666 "But when they' (the compounds) 'are brought together, under certain conditions, they give rise to the still more complex body protoplasm, and this protoplasm exhibits the phenomena of life. I see no break in this series of steps in molecular complication, and I am unable to understand why the language which is applicable to any one term of the series may not be used to any of the others.'

"Here, evidently, I am ordered by Mr. Huxley himself, not to change my language, but to characterise these latter results as I characterised those former ones. If I spoke then of ammonia, etc., as due to chemistry, so must I now speak of protoplasm, life-matter, as due to chemistry—a statement which Mr. Huxley