98 PROTOPLASM. 



modern 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, mollusc, 

 worm, and polype," are composed of "masses of proto- 

 plasm with a nucleus," unless it be that still more extra- 

 vagant assertion that what is ordinarily termed a cell or 

 elementary part is a mass of protoplasm ; for can anything 

 be more unlike the semi-fluid, active, moving matter of 

 amoeba protoplasm, than the hard, dry, passive, external 

 part of a cuticular cell or of an elementary part of bone ? 



After stating that the substance of a colourless blood- 

 corpuscle is an active mass of protoplasm, Mr. Huxley 

 remarks that " under sundry circumstances the corpuscle 

 dies (!) and becomes distended into a round mass, in the 

 midst of which is seen a smaller spherical body, which 

 existed, but was more or less hidden in the living corpuscle, 

 and is called its nucleus. Corpuscles of essentially similar 

 structure are to be found in the skin, in the lining of the 

 mouth, and scattered through the whole framework of the 

 body." Now, what can be meant by a white blood-corpuscle 

 dying and becoming distended into a round mass under 

 sundry circumstances ? Mr. Huxley goes on to say that at 

 an early period of development the organism is " nothing 

 but an aggregation of such corpuscles," that is, of cor- 

 puscles (elementary parts or cells) like those " found in the 

 skin, in the lining of the mouth, and scattered through the 

 whole framework of the body." This assertion is incorrect, 

 inasmuch as the corpuscles in the embryo consist almost 



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." 



