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bioplasm possesses active powers, and if supplied with proper 

 pabulum, soon grows. Each little bioplast grows, that is, 

 increases, by taking up material differing entirely from it in 

 composition, properties, and powers, and converts certain 

 elements of this into matter identical Avith that of Avhich it 

 consists. After the bioplasm-particle has reached a certain 

 size, division occurs. Instead of growing larger and larger, 

 and forming a continuous mass of enoi'mous size, as some have 

 fancifully supposed to exist at the bottom of the ocean, por- 

 tions are from time to time detached and separate themselves, 

 moving away from the parent mass. Each of these little 

 germs has properties in many respects like those of the parent 

 mass. It lives and grows, attains a certain size, and may 

 jiroduce its kind in the same way. 



Now, the whole human organism at a very early period of 

 its development consists entirely of little masses of living 

 or germinal matter like those above referred to. Each of 

 these grows and divides and subdivides, so that multitudes 

 at length result from the division of a few : and these are 

 all the descendants of the first primitive germinal mass, 

 which was derived from pre-existing germinal matter. After 

 a time some of these cease to multiply, though they still 

 live and take up food. The living matter of which they are 

 composed undergoes change. It dies under certain condi- 

 tions, and tissue results. In this way muscle, and nerve, 

 and fibrous tissue, and bone, and hair, and horn, and nail, 

 and all the other tissues, are formed. In the adult, however, 

 there remain some masses of germinal matter which go on 

 growing and dividing just as all of them grew and multiplied 

 in the embryo. Among these are the Avhite or colourless 

 blood-corpuscles, Avhich possess formative power even in old 

 age in greater degree than any other kind of bioplasm in the 

 adult. At the deep aspect of the cuticle, and below the fully- 

 formed epithelium of mucous membranes and some glandular 

 organs, are masses of germinal matter, which are dividing 

 and subdividing in the same way throughout life. These, in 

 the ordinary course, move towards the surface, and as they 

 move, each, in the case of the cuticle, gradually forms upon 

 its surface the hard cuticular matter (cell-wall) to which the 

 properties of the epidermis are due. 



It has been already said that the bioplastic masses of dif- 

 ferent organisms, and those in different parts of the same 

 organism, possess very different endowments. From one 

 kind of bioplasm is formed muscle, from another nerve, from 

 another fat, and so forth, and yet all these kinds have directly 

 descended from one. They could not be distinguished from 



