GERMINAL MATTER OR BIOPLASM. 185 



state in every part, for it is composed of i, living matter; 

 2, matter formed from this; and 3, pabulum, which i 

 takes up. 



The matter in the first state is alone concerned in develop- 

 ment, and the production of those materials which ultimately 

 take the form of tissue, secretion, deposit, as the case may be. 

 It alone possesses the power of growth and of producing 

 matter like itself out of materials differing from it materially 

 in composition, properties, and powers. I have therefore 

 called it germinal or living matter or bioplasm, to distinguish 

 it from the formed material, which is in all cases destitute 

 of these properties. 



The difference between germinal or living matter, or 

 bioplasm, and the pabulum which nourishes it, on the one 

 hand, and the formed material which is produced by it, on 

 the other, is, I believe, absolute. The pabulum does not 

 shade by imperceptible gradations into the living matter, 

 and this latter into the formed material ; but the passage 

 from one state into the other is sudden and abrupt, although 

 there may be much living matter mixed with little lifeless 

 matter, or vice versa. The ultimate particles of matter pass 

 from the lifeless into the living state, and from the latter into 

 the dead state suddenly. Matter cannot be said to half-live 

 or half-die. It is either dead or living, animate or inani- 

 mate; and formed matter has ceased to live. 



Matter may be more or less perfectly or imperfectly 

 formed, and formed matter may differ in hardness, colour, 

 consistence, and a number of other qualities, and it may 

 gradually pass from one state into the other ; but nothing 

 of this kind is observed in the case of the bioplasm. That is 

 alive, or it is not bioplasm. Living matter cannot be half 



