74 6 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



rious projects of the search which it is 

 one of the aims of the organization to 

 carry out. President Spottiswoode's 

 address was an elaborate and excellent 

 performance, treating first of the his- 

 tory, influence, and policy, of the As- 

 sociation with which he has long been 

 connected as treasurer, and then taking 

 up the subject of mathematics, which 

 is the specialty he cultivates. His treat- 

 ment of this subject is highly instruc- 

 tive, and at the present time most op- 

 portune. He not only presents very 

 forcibly the general interest and claims 

 of the subject, but he takes up certain 

 curious aspects of it that have recently 

 excited much curiosity and attention, 

 and among these the perplexing topic 

 of the fourth dimension of space. His 

 address in full, together with that of 

 Prof. Newcomb, will appear in the next 

 issue of The Popular Science Monthly 

 Supplement. 



TEE STUDY OF PROTOPLASM. 



We print this month the third and 

 last installment of an introductory es- 

 say on the nature and properties of 

 protoplasm, by Dr. Montgomery. The 

 author has made this subject a matter 

 of observation, experiment, and pro- 

 found reflection, for many years ; and his 

 views cannot fail to receive the critical 

 attention of philosophical biologists. 

 Dr. Montgomery is deeply impressed 

 with the immense scientific importance 

 of this comparatively new field of ex- 

 ploration, and we think he does not in 

 the least exaggerate the serious interest 

 of the questions opened by this line of 

 study. Protoplasm is the physical ba- 

 sis of life, and its problems are the ini- 

 tial problems of life. Protoplasm is a 

 living substance endowed with capaci- 

 ties of vital movement, and the ques- 

 tion of the origin of life is narrowly 

 and sharply a question of the origin 

 and production of protoplasm. It may 

 never be answered, and many think it 



would be a dreadful thing if it should 

 be answered. All other mysteries of 

 Nature, they hold, may be properly ex- 

 plored, but to explore and explain this 

 is nothing short of stealing a divine se- 

 cret. Yet if the mystery can never be 

 cleared up, as they assure us, then sure- 

 ly there is no harm in probing it ; 

 while, if it can, the fact itself is proof 

 that it ought to be done, and that no 

 harm will result. 



But, whatever may be the final event, 

 Dr." Montgomery has at any rate put 

 the issue in a nice little nutshell. There 

 is a gulf between the organic and the 

 inorganic worlds which we are impres- 

 sively assured is broader than the Pa- 

 cific, and can never be fathomed ; Dr. 

 Montgomery says that, by the chemical 

 substitution of an atom of hydrogen 

 for an atom of oxygen, it will disap- 

 pear. He remarks : 



" Is not protoplasm a chemical compound 

 like other substances, merely varying from 

 them in its degree of molecular complexity ? 

 Its most characteristic manifestation, its dis- 

 tinguishing mode of motion, its peculiar 

 force the one specific activity constituting 

 its most vital difference is better known to 

 us than any quality which forms the distin- 

 guishing feature between other substances. 

 Do we greatly concern ourselves about the 

 origin of MgO,S0 3 + 7H 2 0, or any other min- 

 eral substance ? Why, then, should the ori- 

 gin of some combination of C, H, N, 0, be 

 made a question of the life and death of our 

 principal philosophies ? Has it actually come 

 to this, that the scientific foundation of our 

 creed rests on the decision whether COO is 

 or was once changed into CHO by natural or 

 supernatural means ; and this when there is 

 plenty of H about in our world? Yes, it is 

 even so, however incredible, however little 

 flattering to our intellectual pretensions. 

 The contending claims of naturalism and su- 

 pernaturalism, the fate of the most momen- 

 tous question touching the guidance of our 

 life, turn actually, in the field of science, 

 upon the paltry issue of the synthesis of 

 ternary carbon-compounds, whether this bo 

 chemically or whether it be super-chemical- 

 ly effected. COO is undisputably an inor- 

 ganic compound. CHO is indisputably an 

 organic compound. This designates accu- 

 rately the actual depth of the gulf existing 

 between organic and inorganic Nature." 



