26 PROTOPLASM. 



in truth we analyze not the living matter, but the sub- 

 stances resulting from its death. Of course any one may 

 say that the inanimate substances he obtains were the 

 actual things of which the living matter was composed, 

 but it is a mere assertion, for the bodies in question cannot 

 be detected in the matter while it is actually alive; and 

 when obtained they do not possess the properties or powers 

 characteristic of the living matter.* What, therefore, can be 

 gained by asserting that these things constitute living matter? 

 What is the use of trying to make people believe and con- 

 fess that there is no difference between a living thing and 

 the same thing dead, when it is clearly possible that there 

 may be the very greatest difference ? 



And I must not omit to notice here a remark made by 

 Mr. Herbert Spencer, which illustrates the extraordinary 

 opinion entertained by him concerning the difference be- 

 tween living, growing, active, matter, and perfectly lifeless 

 matter. " On the other hand (he says) the microscope has 

 traced down organisms to simpler and simpler forms, until, in 

 the Protogenes of Professor Haeckel there has been reached 

 a type distinguishable from a fragment of albumen only by its 

 finely granular character""^ Mr. Herbert Spencer should 

 prepare a solution of albumen and a solution of " proto- 



* " In the last place, Mr. Huxley's analysis is an analysis of dead 

 protoplasm, and indecisive, consequently, for that which lives. Mr. 

 Huxley betrays sensitiveness in advance of this objection ; for he seeks 

 to rise above the sensitiveness and the objection at once by styling the 

 latter 'frivolous.'" "As regards Protoplasm in relation to Professor 

 Huxley's Essay on the Physical Basis of Life," by J. H. Stirling, 

 LL.D., F.R.C.S. Edinburgh, Blackwood and Sons, October, 1869. 



f "The Principles of Psychology," p. 137. 



