PROTOPLASM 



only; for if the steel be unmagnetized, is it not " dead?" 

 Devitalize the sarcode (living amoeba), unmagnetize the 

 steel, and both cease to manifest their respective vital or 

 magnetic phenomena. In that respect both are " defunct." 

 " Only," remarks the same authority, " the steel resists 

 much longer the surrounding decomposing agencies ;" and 

 I would add, but this Owen would regard as a matter of 

 the utmost indifference, you can unmagnetize and remag- 

 netize the magnet as often as you like, but you can only 

 kill the amoeba once, and you can never revitalize it. 



In answer to my objections to some of his statements, 

 Professor Owen observes that " there are organisms (Vibrio 

 Rotifer, Macrobiotus, &c.) which we can devitalize and 

 revitalize devive and revive many times."* That such 

 organisms can be revived, all will admit, but probably Pro- 

 fessor Owen will be alone in not recognizing any distinction 

 between the words revitalizing and reviving. The animal- 

 cule that can be revived has never been dead, but that 

 which is not dead cannot be revitalized. The difference 

 between the living state and the dead state is absolute, for 

 that which has once lost its life can never regain it. The 

 half-drowned man that can be revived has never been dead. 



If Owen regards the (apparently) dried animalcule as 

 being " as completely lifeless as is the drowned man whose 

 breath and heat have gone, and whose blood has ceased to 

 circulate," he will not find many to agree with him ; for 

 will not a drop of water resuscitate or revive the one, but 

 who shall revitalize the other ? 



* "The Monthly Microscopical Journal," No. V, May I, 1869, 

 p. 294. 



