FORMS OF PROTOPLASM. 25 



carbon united with double molecules of 

 oxygen and made carbon dioxide, that is 

 carbonic acid ; and so on with the other 

 elementary bodies, forming other complex 

 bodies : these combined with each other, 

 and with each other again, and again and 

 again, through a long series of combina- 

 tions and re-combinations in an apparently 

 interminable chain of developments and 

 complexities, from the original primitive 

 matter up through the various complex 

 inorganic bodies and the not-living albu- 

 minoids ; so that eventually there was 

 formed that extremely complex substance 

 called protoplasm, with its immensely 

 complex activities, which in this case are 

 called "vital" vital "force," vital" energy." 1 2 

 The atoms in the molecules of the con- 

 stituent elements of protoplasm necessarily 



1 2 " It has not occurred to me that any one uses the 

 term ' vital force ' in any other way than as a convenient 

 method of expressing the sum total of the physical and 

 chemical activities of organisms." Prof. E. L. Mark; 

 DOLBEAR, p. 359- 



" The hypothesis of a ' vital principle ' is now as com- 

 pletely discarded as the hypothesis of phlogiston in chemistry. 

 No biologist with a reputation to lose would for a moment 

 think of defending it." John Fiske. DoLBEARj p. 358. 



" A vital element, i.e., an element peculiar to organisms^ 

 no more exists than does a vital force working independently 

 of natural and material processes." Claus and Sedgwick. 

 DoLBEARj p. 158. 



