r i8 PROTOPLASM. 



Some among those who work at and think over these 

 matters doubt if many of Prof. Huxley's assertions are at all 

 justified by his facts, and many are unable to accept argu- 

 ments which by him seem to have been considered quite 

 conclusive. I shall therefore venture to draw attention to 

 some of the views he has recently expressed in his paper, 

 " On the Physical Basis of Life," published in the " Fort- 

 nightly Review", February ist, 1869. 



Up to this time all observers have agreed in opinion 

 that the cell or elementary part of the fully-formed organism 

 consists of different kinds of matter, and it has been sup- 

 posed that distinct offices were performed by some of these. 

 They have been variously named. Cell-wall, cell-contents, 

 nucleus, nucleolus, periplast, endoplast, primordial utricle, 

 protoplasm, living matter and formed matter, are not all the 

 terms that have been proposed. I think Professor Huxley 

 is the first observer who has spoken of the cell in its 

 entirety as a mass of protoplasm, and the only one who has 

 ever asserted that any tissue in nature is composed through- 

 out of matter which can properly be regarded as one in 

 kind. This view is quite incompatible with many facts, 

 some of which have been alluded to by Mr. Huxley him- 

 self.* I doubt if in the whole range of modem science it 

 would be possible to find an assertion more at variance 

 with facts familiar to physiologists than the statement that 

 " beast and fowl, reptile and fish, mollusk, worm, and 



* "The original endoplast of the embryo cell," Huxley says, in 

 1853, "has grown and divided into all the endoplasts of the adult," and 

 "the original periplast has grown at a corresponding rate, and has 

 formed one continuous and connected envelope from the very first." 



