28 JOURNAL OF THE [April, 



make an admission somewhat in the line of Doctor Beale's dis- 

 tinction between bioplasms " consuming different kinds of pab- 

 ulum ;" for he is so frank as to say that "notwithstanding all 

 the fundamental resemblances which exist between the powers of 

 the protoplasm in plants and in animals, they present a striking 

 difference * * * * jn the fact that plants can manufacture 

 fresh protoplasm out of mineral compounds, whereas animals 

 are obliged to procure it ready made, and hence, in the long 

 run, depend upon plants." While his imaginative eye is able to 

 see a " community of faculty * * * * between the brightly- 

 coloured lichen, which so nearly resembles a mere mineral incrus- 

 tation of the bare rock on which it grows, and the painter to 

 whom it is instinct with beauty, or the botanist, whom it feeds 

 with knowledge," or to discern a hidden bond connecting "the 

 flower which a girl wears in her hair, and the blood which 

 courses through her youthful veins ; " he nevertheless stops to 

 have it " understood that this general uniformity by no means 

 excludes any amount of special modifications of the fundamen- 

 tal substance." Still, in the protoplasm of the microscopic alga 

 or fungus, and that of tlie leaf-cell or leaf-hair ; in the substance 

 of the organless and almost formless moner or amoeba, and that 

 of the ever-changing white blood-corpuscle of a whale or of a 

 man ; in the matter of the nucleated epithelial cell, and that of 

 the animal ovum ; he beholds " the clay of the potter ; which, 

 bake it and paint it as you will, remains clay, separated by arti- 

 fice and not by nature, from the commonest brick or sun-dried 

 clod." "Thus," he concludes, "it becomes clear that all living 

 powers are cognate, and that all living forms are fundamentally 

 of one character." 



Then he goes on to say, " the researches of the chemist have 

 revealed a no less striking uniformity of material composition in 

 living matter. In perfect strictness it is true that chemical 

 investigation can tell us little or nothing, directly, of the com- 

 position of living matter, inasmuch as such matter must needs 

 die in the act of analysis." One fact, however, remains out of 

 reach of the refinements of logic -.vhich objectors have raised 

 upon this point: "and this is that all the forms of protoplasm 

 which have yet been examined contain the four elements, car- 

 bon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen, in very complex union 

 and that they behave similarly towards several reagents." 



