THE LIVING SUBSTANCE 11 



and like matter are absolutely necessary for the well-being of 

 the plant yet are not alive. Just so does protoplasm contain 

 its nonliving constituents, its nutrient matter, its internal environ- 

 ment. Kiesel takes a very firm stand on the purely passive or 

 independent nature of the free water in protoplasm, which he 

 says is not a part of the "ground substance" of living matter. 

 The water in vacuoles (about which there can be no doubt), 

 water taken in by imbibition or osmosis, and perhaps also the 

 water of hydration of colloidal particles Kiesel says is not a 

 constitutional part of protoplasm but only a medium for its 

 activities. 



Vital staining, wherein dyes are added to the surrounding 

 solution and taken up by cells, is presumed to give some indica- 

 tion of what is alive and what not. Metaplastic or nutritive 

 substances, such as oil globules, are readily stained, while the 

 protoplasmic matrix and the nucleus are not usually, if ever, 

 stained when alive. 



Associated with the problem of what in protoplasm is living 

 and what not, is the problem, what organism is to be regarded as 

 representing the simplest form of living individual. This honor 

 is usually given by the zoologist to Amoeba. The botanist, how- 

 ever, regards the unicellular blue-green algae and the bacteria 

 as the most primitive forms of life, with the slime molds (myxo- 

 mycetes) not far above. The idea of an extremely elementary 

 state of living matter more primitive than the forms just men- 

 tioned has long occupied the thoughts of biologists. Haeckel, 

 "the German Darwin," found in the sea what he thought to be 

 the most primitive form of protoplasm. He, a monist (monism is 

 the doctrine of the identity of matter and mind), was quite ready 

 for such a primordial mass of protoplasm, because- it fitted in 

 with his philosophical idea that life started in an undifferentiated 

 bit of living matter. Here, actually now on earth, was, so he 

 thought, his Urschleim. The supposedly primitive protoplasmic 

 mass that Haeckel found in the sea was apparently devoid of a 

 nucleus or other differentiation. He classed it as "Monera." 

 Haeckel's Monera {Bathyhius haeckeUi) was either a marine 

 Amoeba or an artifact (an artificial product), perhaps the slimy 

 precipitate of a calcium salt. Though his find was not what he 

 thought it to be, yet Haeckel's philosophical idea is nevertheless 

 sound, for we cannot escape the conviction that life began in a 

 relatively undifferentiated mass of "protoplasm." 



