Ni:W VIEWS OF ANIMAL TRANSFORMATIONS. 6^g 



sociology and the branches of biology that are occupied with the con- 

 stitution and functions of organisms. 



We now reach the ultimate elements of living bodies, the material 

 which has served to make the most simple beings, and we ask, What is 

 its origin ? Here we are in the presence of unity ; there is no longer 

 any question of association. Most living cells are composed of four 

 parts — a membranous envelope, a contained fluid in which is a special 

 globule, and the nucleus, containing the nucleolus. Of these four parts 

 only one, the contained semi-fluid, perfectly limpid or finely granular, 

 the protoplasm, is indispensable. It is in this strange substance that 

 life, which needs no other apparatus to manifest itself, resides. Those 

 remarkable beings, the Monera, are formed of it alone. They are 

 simple, homogeneous clots of a limpid jelly like the white of egg. 

 This jelly has the power of movement, captui'es animals, digests and 

 assimilates them, grows, and, when it has attained a certain size, 

 divides into two or several masses, that begin anew the life of 

 their mother, and divide like her when they have reached a certain 

 size. 



This faculty of division, is an important property of protoplasm, 

 because it governs all organic evolution. A protoplasmic mass can 

 not exceed a determinate size. When it reaches this size, a parti- 

 tion forms, and, as its mass is perfectly homogeneous, as it is con- 

 stantly traversed by currents that completely mingle its substance, all 

 the resulting fragments possess the acquired or hereditary properties of 

 the protoplasmic mass from which they came. This explains all the 

 phenomena of heredity, by means of which each being transmits to 

 its progeny, even in the case of sexual generation, all its specific and 

 part of its personal characters. 



From this incapacity of protoplasmic masses to exceed a certain 

 length, it follows that all beings that are larger must be formed of 

 several distinct masses of protoplasm — in a word, are colonies. So the 

 generality of the law of association appears as a consequence of one of 

 the fundamental properties of protoplasm. It constantly decomposes 

 itself into distinct masses. These separate masses are modified, each 

 in a particular fashion, under the influence of external agents. Hence 

 the wonderful variety of nature is an immediate consequence of the 

 law of association, of the necessity imposed upon protoplasm to sepa- 

 rate into small distinct individualities. 



What, then, can be the nature of protoplasm ? Struck by its ho- 

 mogeneity, the identity of the elements that compose it with those 

 that form albuminoid substances, it has been taken for a mere chemi- 

 cal compound, and it has been boldly asked if it is not possible to pro- 

 duce it artificially ; if man has not power to relight the torch of Pro- 

 metheus and create life at will. This question, I believe, has been asked 

 in consequence of a strange confusion of words. If it is true that the 

 substances that form living matter are the same as those that enter 



