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one another, nor from their primary mass. Neither could one 

 of these kinds of bioplasm in the adult develop a mass capable 

 of producing the rest. Although no one could distinguish 

 one particle from the other, each will produce its kind, and 

 that alone. It Avould be as unreasonable to expect an amoeba 

 to result from a pus-corpuscle, or from a yeast particle, or 

 to suppose that by any alteration in food or management a 

 cabbage would spring from a mustard seed, or the modern 

 white mouse from the descendant of an ancestral white rabbit, 

 as it would be to suppose that muscle, nerve, brain, gland, 

 or other sjiecial tissue might be produced indiscriminately 

 by any mass of bioplasm of the adult, supposing that the 

 conditions under which it lived were changed to any pos- 

 sible extent. Its powers, which are within, and upon Avhich 

 the capacity to develop depends, cannot be thus changed by 

 any mere change in external circumstances. 



The Production of Pus. — But it is very remarkable that 

 the many kinds of germinal matter of the organism of 

 man and the higher animals, though differing so much in 

 power or j^roperty that one produces nerve, another muscle, 

 a third bone, a fourth fat, and so on, will each under certain 

 conditions give rise to a common form of germinal matter 

 or bioplasm differing in properties and powers from them 

 all. This is the form of bioplasm known as pus, which 

 may go on multiplying for any length of time, giving rise 

 to successive generations of pus bioplasts, Avhich exhibit re- 

 markable vital properties, although they cannot form tissue, 

 nor produce tissue-forming bioplasts of any kind whatever. 



It is evident from this that the power is manifested in one 

 direction only — onwards. Embryonic living matter or 

 bioplasm gives rise to several different kinds, not one of 

 which can produce matter with the endowments of that which 

 existed immediately before it, and from Avhich it sprang. 

 And yet every kind of germinal matter exhibits powers of 

 infinite growth.^ 



When bioplasm or germinal matter lives very much faster 

 than in health, in consequence of being supplied with an 

 undue pro})ortion of nutrient matter, a morbid bioplasm 



' While, Iiowever, the process of division is proceeding, as has been des- 

 cribed, in some cases a small portion of the germinal matter docs not 

 undergo division into masses of the next series, but retains its primitive 

 powers. This remains in an embryonic condition after the tissue has been 

 formed, and thus the development of new tissue, even in advanced life, is, in 

 some cases, not only possible, but actually occurs. Many cancers and other 

 morbid growths probably originate in these masses of embryo l)ioplasm 

 which remain for a long time in a quiescent state embedded in some of the 

 fully-formed textures of the adult. 



