9 o 



PROTOPLASM. 



size, the mass of living matter divides into smaller portions, 

 every one of which possesses the same properties as the 

 the parent mass, and in equal degree. 



Scientific investigators have hitherto failed to discover 

 any laws by which these facts may be accounted for. But 

 rather than ignore or misrepresent them, or affirm anything 

 concerning them which we cannot prove, as some have 

 done, it seems to me preferable to resort provisionally to 

 hypothesis. In order to account for the facts, I conceive 

 that some directing agency of a kind peculiar to the living 

 world exists in association with every particle of living 

 matter, which, in some hitherto unexplained manner, affects 

 temporarily its elements, and determines the precise changes 

 which are to take place when the living matter again comes 

 under the influence of certain external conditions. 



In higher animals, besides giving rise to the phenomena 

 above referred to every instant during life in every part of 

 the organism, this supposed agency or power, acting under 

 certain circumstances at an early period of development, so 

 disposes the material which it governs, that mechanisms 

 result of most wonderful structure, admirably adapted, as 

 they have been evidently actually designed, for the fulfilment 

 of definite purposes. These mechanisms were anticipated, 

 as it were, from the earliest period, and their formation 

 provided for by the preparatory changes through which the 

 structures had to pass before perfect development could be 

 attained. Can these phenomena be accounted for except 

 through the influence of some wonderful power or agency 

 such as we are now contemplating? 



Of all organic mechanism, the most perfect, the most 

 exalted, and as regards mere structure the most elaborate, 



