DIFFERENCES IN ANIMAL AND PLANT LIFE 517 



evidently exists in life, though of course dualism is plainly 

 evident in nature. The force of electricity which divides itself 

 perceptibly into static and dynamic, presents a somewhat close 

 analogy. The inter-relations of the two manifestations might 

 not inconceivably be represented thus : 



•.*•.-. 



the dotted lines merely indicating the necessary chemical 

 connection. 



It is indeed hard to know why there should be so much 

 straining after unity on the part of modern inquirers. Since 

 we are not even sure that the living protoplasm of a horse 

 is absolutely the same as that of a snail or whether there may 

 not be differences in this respect in individuals of the same 

 species, how are we to assume that the protoplasm of plants 

 and animals is one and the same substance ? 



It is the modern habit of not discriminating between the 

 primal substances of the two kingdoms that has been the 

 cause of errors of interpretation in the application of Mendelian 

 principles. What is true of certain plants in this connection 

 is largely false of many animals. In the absence of any 

 means of analysing living protoplasm, it is difficult to under- 

 stand how the identity of the primal material of plants and 

 animals can be positively asserted. If protist life in which the 

 two principles tend to merge could be seen to develop into 

 higher forms, there might be some foundation for the unitarian 

 belief; but on the contrary we see, as before observed, that it 

 does not emerge from its lowly state, and what it did at its 

 origin is a subject of conjecture. It is not easy to concede that 

 the plasmic constitution of a tree whose ancestors since the 

 origin of higher plants have led a vegetal existence is the 



