10 JOURNAL OF THE [January^ 



matter," and Beale's designation of it, bioplasm, more definitely 

 expresses the idea of its being a life plasma. 



But the factthat the living portion of the diatom consists in 

 the main of protoplasm, is not enough to enable us to answer the 

 question whether the diatom is an animal or a vegetable, since 

 protoplasm is common to both kingdoms of the organic world and 

 enters into the composition of all animate things, high and low. 

 Not only is it apparently the essential part of the desmid, the 

 diatom, the amoeba, and the rest of the protophyta and the proto- 

 zoa (the so-called " lowest "' living creatures), but it appears to be 

 the seat of all vital action in the water-weed and the fish that 

 swims beside it, the shrub and the reptile that crawls at its root, 

 the tree and the quadruped that enjoys its shelter, — even in man 

 himself, who excels all and rules all. In Nitella, Valisneria, or 

 Anacharis you may see the colorless current circling in every cell, 

 building and unbuilding with a chemistry beyond our ken, and 

 in all the higher animals it seems to be the matrix in which are 

 fashioned the tissues and the bones, the source also of the con- 

 tractility of the muscles and the sensibility of the nerves. In 

 your own warm blood you will find protoplasm, in the form of 

 the " white corpuscles " which creep and crawl with an activity 

 and independence quite mystifying to the observer, but doubtless 

 with a useful and important purpose, if we only knew what it 

 was; and if you could look into your own wondrous brain you 

 would probably find protoplasm in some way underlying all con- 

 sciousness and thought. 



But when I thus talk of protoplasm, I use the word as a generic 

 term, in the same manner as I should speak of tissue or muscle. 

 There is a difference between the ideal, or philosophical, proto- 

 plasm, and the real, or physiological, protoplasm. The philosophers 

 have created for themselves, by an a priori process, a substance 

 which is absolutely homogeneous and structureless, and which 

 is identical in composition and attributes throughout the whole 

 realm of animate nature. On this hypothetical basis they have 

 undertaken to erect a monistic system in which animals and plants 

 actually arise from the same root-stock and are really quickened 

 by the same vital stream. I have no preconceived dislike to such 

 a theory, if it can be proved true; but, unfortunately, the induc- 

 tive methods of physiology do not confirm this deductive con- 



