22 PROTOPLASM. 



ago, drew a distinction between living and non-living matter, 

 which he now, without any explanation, utterly ignores. 

 He remarked that the stone, the gas, the crystal, had an 

 inertia, and tended to remain as they were unless some ex- 

 ternal influence affected them ; but that living things were 

 characterized by the very opposite tendencies. He referred 

 also to " the faculty of pursuing their own course" and the 

 " inherent law of change in living beings." In 1853, the 

 same authority actually found fault with those who at- 

 tempted to reduce life to " mere attractions and repulsions," 

 and considered physiology " simply as a complex branch of 

 mere physics." He also remarked that "vitality is a pro- 

 perty inherent in certain kinds of matter." 



Bathybius. I will now draw attention to a fanciful form 

 of marine protoplasm, supposed to be very widely extended 

 at great depths, which has been much discussed of late, and 

 concerning the nature of which much difference of opinion 

 is entertained. From the protoplasm of the amoeba and 

 certain forms of foraminifera. we pass, it is said, to larger 

 and more extended sheets of this substance, included under 

 the head of " urschleim," and constituting the organisms of 

 the simplest animated beings, which have been included 

 by Haeckel in the genus Moner. It would be wrong to omit 

 all mention of this subject, as it is very interesting and of 

 great importance, although I have not given much attention 

 to it. I shall therefore quote the observations of others so 

 far as they appear to me to bear upon the consideration 

 of the nature of protoplasm. 



In the "Microscopical Journal" for October, 1868, is a 



