7 62 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



animal there is nothing living but protoplasm or germinal matter, 

 " transparent, colorless, and, as far as can be ascertained by examina- 

 tion with the highest powers of the microscope, perfectly structure- 

 less. It exhibits these same characters at every period of its exist- 

 ence." Neither the contractile tissue of the muscle, the axis-cylinder 

 of the nerve, nor the secreting cell of the gland, is living, according to 

 Beale. Hence it would be fair to draw the inference that no vital 

 force should be required to explain the phenomena of the non-living 

 matter of the body, such as the contraction of the muscle or the func- 

 tion of the nerve. If this be conceded, it is a great point gained ; 

 since the phenomenon of life becomes vastly simplified when we have 

 to account for it only as exhibited in this one single form of living 

 matter, protoplasm. In describing its properties, Allman includes this 

 remarkable mobility, these spontaneous movements, and says : " They 

 result from its proper irritability, its essential constitution as living 

 matter. From the facts there is but one legitimate conclusion, that 

 life is a property of protoplasm." Beale, however, will not allow that 

 life is " a property " of protoplasm. " It can not be a property of 

 matter," he says, " because it is in all respects essentially different in 

 its actions from all acknowledged properties of matter." But the 

 properties of bodies are only the characters by which we differentiate 

 them. Two bodies having the same properties would only be two 

 portions of the same substance. Because life, therefore, is unlike 

 other properties of matter, it by no means follows that it is not a prop- 

 erty of matter. No dictum is more absolute in science than the one 

 which predicates properties upon constitution. To say that this prop- 

 erty exhibited by protoplasm, marvelous and even unique though it 

 be, is not a natural result of the constitution of the matter itself, but 

 is due to an unknown entity, a tertium quid, which inhabits and con- 

 trols it, is opposed to all scientific analogy and experience. To the 

 statement of the vitalist that there is no evidence that life is a prop- 

 erty of matter, we may reply with emphasis that there is not the 

 slightest proof that it is not. 



Chemistry tells us that complexity of composition involves com- 

 plexity of properties. The grand progress which organic chemistry has 

 made in recent times has been owing to the distinct recognition of the 

 influence of structure upon properties. Isomerism is one of its most 

 significant developments. The number of possible isomers increases 

 enormously with the complexity of the molecule. Granted that we 

 now know several of the proteid group of substances : how many 

 thousands may there be yet to know ? Bodies of such extreme com- 

 plexity of constitution may well have an indefinite number of isomers. 

 Not only does Chemistry not say that there can not be such a thing, 

 but she encourages the expectation that there will yet be found the 

 precise proteid of which the changes of protoplasm are properties. 

 The rapid march of recent organic synthesis makes it quite certain 



