MONISM AND DUALISM 237 



teids are dissociated, but that external agencies are 

 destructive to protoplasm. Assimilation only takes 

 place in cells prepared by living protoplasm to resist 

 the destructive action of the physico-chemical forces. 

 These cells are specially prepared laboratories, and 

 it is difficult to imagine how a similar process could 

 be gone through by unprotected carbon compounds 

 when floating in the sea. Mr. Spencer's supposi- 

 tion, therefore, although possible, is highly impro- 

 bable. 



But what right has Mr. Spencer to slip the words 

 " still more sensitive " into his argument? 

 Chemists have not manufactured any substance 

 which is in the very least sensitive, and to do so is 

 impossible. For, unless sensation is a principle of 

 the dead matter which chemists use, no possible 

 combination of that matter could give it existence. 

 But Mr. Spencer goes on to say that these com- 

 pounds would display ' ' actions verging little by 

 little into those called vital," and states that protein 

 exhibits these actions in a certain degree. Now 

 what evidence has he for saying that vital actions 

 are exhibited by protein as well by protoplasm ? He 

 certainly should have given it. Mr. Spencer has 

 here been led away by a verbal argument ; and it is 

 quite impossible to reconcile this conclusion with his 

 other statements about life. For example, "Life 

 in its essence cannot be conceived in physico- 

 chemical terms" (1 c., p. 120), and "we find it 

 impossible to think of life as imported into the unit 

 of protoplasm from without ; and yet we find it 

 impossible to conceive it as emerging from the co- 



