1889.] NEW-YORK MICROSCOPICAL SOCIETY. H 



functions implying a good degree of organization. The ideal 

 beginning is simply a living stuff ; — a colloid, plus vitality. 

 In fact, Oken's undifferentiated and unindividualized ^^ slime" 

 meets the requirements of the case. 



Professor Huxley thought he had discovered this basal ma- 

 terial in the renowned Bathybius. Haeckel hailed it as the 

 very ground-floor of the modern biological structure ; and the 

 specific name Haeckelii, which was given it, testified to the 

 sympathy between the parent and the God- father. Haeckel 

 confidently accepted Bathybius as the final proof of the evolu- 

 tion theory, and from behind it challenged all doubters to bat- 

 tle ; just as Huxley later entrenched himself, once and for all, 

 in Orohippus. But Bathybius proved to be a false hope. It 

 turned out that the wish had been father to the thought ; — that 

 Bathybius existed only in the imagination. And so in science 

 it proves to be nearly as difficult to determine what are "essen- 

 tials" as it is in theology. 



Now, the line of separation between a lifeless colloid and a 

 colloid plus vitality seems a very slight barrier, and, a priori, 

 it ought to be easily crossed. We have become accustomed to 

 think that in protoplasm we have the bridge. We have been 

 saying for a long time that protoplasm is the ultimate seat of 

 all vital phenomena, in both animal and plant ; that as we go 

 down in the scale, organization narrows more and more, until 

 at last the lowest organism consists of no concrete thing but 

 protoplasm. Then we have argued from the other end, saying 

 that the boundary between inorganic and organic substances 

 has been wiped out ; that chemists have succeeded in artificially 

 building up organic compounds ; and that they may be expected 

 to produce, sooner or later, those most complex of all organic 

 substances, the protein compounds. Then we have looked 

 upon the problem as reduced to a comparatively simple form : — 

 given, artificially created protoplasm, to wake it into life ! 



Ah yes, but really how much better off are we now than when 

 we approached the matter from the other side ? Now it is syn- 

 thesis, then it was analysis. In either case the essential factor 

 eludes us. When we had the apparently organless Moner or the 

 Amoeba before us, we seemed to be at the very entrance of the 

 holy of holies. The curtain was thin and unresisting ; it was 

 easy to brush it aside, — but what then ? Behold, the spirit en- 



