THE BEGINNINGS OF LIFE. 431 



in saline solutions and in organic infusions respectively 

 — products endowed v/ith such totally different tenden- 

 cies — we may perhaps dimly see our way to comprehend_, 

 if we take into consideration the fundamental nature of 

 the difference existing between ordinary saline materials 

 and the diverse big-atomed colloids of which living 

 things are compounded. 



The interchangeability of animal and vegetal modes 

 of growth — so strikingly illustrated in the last chapter — 

 was long ago recognized by a few eminent naturalists 1, 

 though systematists have never been wanting in energy 

 or will to denounce, what they considered, such revo- 

 lutionary and anarchical doctrines. The additional 

 evidence now about to be adduced will, however, 

 suffice to set the final stamp of truth upon the views of 

 those who regard Animals and Plants as mere modes 

 of growth of a fundamentally similar living matter — 

 which, though at first it may assume more or less 

 neutral forms, is ever ready, now under one set of 

 influences to go along the higher animal modes of 

 development, and now under another to persist in the 

 simpler vegetal modes of nutrition. 



Several naturalists, however, have also expressed 

 their conviction that many of the lower forms of life — 



crystallizing is to crystallizable matter what the vital property is to 

 albuminoid matter (protoplasm). The crystalline form corresponds to 

 the organic form, and its internal structure to tissue stmcture. Crystalline 

 force being a property of matter, vital force is but a property of matter.' 

 (' Fortnightly Review,' Feb. 1869.) 



^ See Lindley's ' Veget. Kingdom,' 3rd ed. pp. 2 and 8. 



