is how, for one idea, protoplasm could become one thing here, and, for another idea, another so different thing there. We are more curious about the modification than the protoplasm. In the difference, rather than in the identity, it is indeed that the wonder lies. "Here are several thousand pieces of protoplasm; analysis can detect no difference in them. They are to us, let us say, as they are to Mr. Huxley, identical in power, in form, and in substance; and yet on all these several thousand little bits of apparently indistinguishable matter an element of difference so pervading and so persistent has been impressed, that of them all, not one is interchangeable with another! Each seed feeds its own kind. The protoplasm of the gnat will no more grow into the fly than it will grow into an elephant. Protoplasm is protoplasm; yes, but man's protoplasm is man's protoplasm, and the mushroom's the mushroom's."1 The difference is one of kind, not of degree; and that difference the word "modification," though it may indeed sometimes conceal, will never be able to efface. 13. In closing this brief review of Mr. Huxley's 1 "As Regards Protoplasm," p. 58. doctrine, it will be found not unimportant to notice some particulars which characterise Mr. Huxley's own position in relation to it. Foremost among these is the nomenclature which Mr. Huxley has chosen to employ. The protoplasmic pellicle, "the formative protoplasmic layer" in vegetable cells, was regarded by Von Mohl as a structure of special importance, distinct from the cell-contents, and was named by him, in 1844, "the primordial utricle." This primordial utricle has since been called protoplasm by Professor Huxley, although some years previously he had restricted the term protoplasm to the matter within the primordial utricle, which matter he at that time regarded as nothing more than an "accidental anatomical modification" of the endoplast, and of little importance.1 'The nucleus, and with it the protoplasm, Mr. Huxley thought, exerted no peculiar office, and possessed no metabolic power. But Mr. Huxley has changed his views without one word of explanation concerning the facts which led him to modify them, or even an acknowledgment that he had changed them. Mr. Huxley now considers 'protoplasm' of the first importance. His 'endoplast' and 'peri "The Cell Theory:" Medical Chirurgical Review, October, 1853 plastic substance' of 1853 together constitute his 'protoplasm' of 1869.”1 14. "In order to convince people that the actions of living beings are not due to any mysterious vitality or vital force or power, but are in fact physical and chemical in their nature, Professor Huxley gives to matter which is alive, to matter which is dead, and to matter which is completely changed by the process of roasting or boiling, the very same name. 'Mutton contained protoplasm of the same nature as was found in every living thing.' 'As he spoke, he was wasting his stock of protoplasm, but he had the power of making it up again by drawing upon the protoplasm of some other animal— say a sheep. (Laughter.)' The matter of sheep and mutton and man and lobster and egg is the same, and, according to Huxley, one may be transubstantiated into the other. But how? By subtle influences,' and 'under sundry circumstances,' answers this authority. And all these things alive, or dead, or dead and roasted, he tells us are made of protoplasm, and he affirms this protoplasm is the physical basis of 1 66 Protoplasm; or Matter and Life." By Lionel S. Beale, M.B., F.R.S. Third Edition. London: Churchill, 1874, pp. 90, 91. life, or the basis of physical life.1 But is it not hard that the discoverer of 'subtle influences' should laugh at the fiction of 'vitality'! By calling things which differ from one another in many qualities by the same name, Huxley seems to think he can annihilate distinctions, enforce identity, and sweep away the difficulties which have impeded the progress of previous philosophers in their search after unity. Plants and worms and men are all protoplasm, and protoplasm is albuminous matter, and albuminous matter consists of four elements, and these four elements possess certain properties, by which properties all differences between plants and worms and men are to be accounted for. Although Huxley would probably admit that a worm was not a man, he would tell us that by 'subtle influences' and 'under sundry circumstances,' the one thing might be easily converted into the other, and not by such nonsensical fictions as 'vitality,' which can neither be weighed, measured, nor conceived. But, in 1 [Note by Dr. Beale :] The heading of his lecture as published in The Scotsman for November 9, 1868, is "The Bases of Physical Life," while his communication in The Fortnightly, February 1, 1869, referred to by him as this same lecture, is entitled "The Physical Basis of Life.” The iron basis of the candle, and the basis of the iron candle, are expressions evidently interchangeable. science, it is not fair to indulge in word-tricks and equivocal illustrations, nor is it justifiable to make use of misleading similes." 1 15. "I think Professor Huxley is the first observer who has spoken of the cell in its entirety as a mass of protoplasm, and the only one who has ever asserted that any tissue in nature is composed throughout of matter which can properly be regarded as one in kind. This view is quite irreconcilable with many facts, some of which have been alluded to by Mr. Huxley himself. I doubt if in the whole range of modern science it would be possible to find an assertion more at variance with facts familiar to physiologists than the statement that 'beast and fowl, reptile and fish, mollusc, worm, and polype,' are composed of 'masses of protoplasm with a nucleus,' unless it be that still more extravagant assertion that what is ordinarily termed a cell or elementary part is a mass of protoplasm; for can anything be more unlike the semi-fluid, active, moving matter of amoeba protoplasm, than the hard, dry, passive, external part of a cuticular cell or of an elementary part of bone?" 2 1 Dr. Beale's "Protoplasm," ut sup., pp. 95, 96. |