302 FORMA TIVE PO WERS 



perfectly structureless. Even if the particle of bioplasm be 

 magnified five thousand diameters, not the faintest indication 

 of fibres, or particles exhibiting any special arrangement 

 in fact not a trace of anything having structure can be 

 discerned. 



The speck of living matter, however, absorbs certain 

 substances, and increases by assimilating matter it selects, 

 and changing it into matter like itself. Thus it gradually 

 grows, and when it has attained a certain size, perhaps 

 2 ^ of an inch in diameter, it divides ; or small portions 

 are detached from it, each of which grows like the primary 

 particle, and in the same way gives origin to successors from 

 which tissues are at length produced. It is in this way, by 

 changes in the bioplasm, that form and structure result 

 (page 220). Form and structure result from the death of 

 bioplasm, and no matter that is alive possesses either. 



Now I am asked to believe that all the wonderful phe- 

 nomena that succeed one another, and at last result in form 

 and structure, are due to the material properties of the primi- 

 tive living speck, and that the germ from which the new 

 being is evolved, is but an aggregation of minute particles 

 which have been detached from every one of the many million 

 minute anatomical elements of every tissue and organ of the 



suspended. Protoplasm is often described as granular, but when 

 granules are present they lie amongst or are imbedded in the living, 

 growing bioplasm. The colouring matter is formed by bioplasm, and 

 often dissolved in fluid ; but as long as bioplasm exists in the living 

 state it is colourless, though its particles may be surrounded by coloured 

 fluid. Thus the whole mass may appear on superficial examination to 

 be coloured ; but this is not the real state of the case. In many 

 instances the living matter occupies the central part of a mass of 

 coloured formed material, and can be seen to be perfectly without 

 colour, though the matter formed from it may be intensely coloured. 



