342 LOWEST GRADE OF BEING. 



August last, tells us that the " undifferentiated aggregate of 

 protoplasm" belongs to "the lowest grade of living things."* 

 The truth is it belongs as much to the highest order as to 

 the lowest. A so-called " undifferentiated protoplasm " is 

 common to every order and every kind, and to every period 

 of life. Not one single living form can live an instant or 

 can be conceived in thought as living unless this substance 

 form part of its organism. Such observations as the above 

 are calculated to mislead and do mislead. Mr. Herbert 

 Spencer ought to inform his readers that every living thing 

 and every part of a living thing was at an early period of its 

 development undifferentiated protoplasm (living matter) 

 and that this substance constitutes an essential part of its 

 body during every moment of its existence. Neither the 

 want of the capacity of differentiation (one of the most mis- 

 leading of terms) nor the protoplasmic character is charac- 

 teristic of the matter of any particular grade of life, but 

 matter in this state (bioplasm), as I have shown, exists in 

 all grades and at every period of life. 



If we concentrate our attention upon this formless sub- 

 stance, bearing in mind that it is in all cases the necessary 

 and constant forerunner of every purposive structural and 

 mechanical arrangement of matter in living beings, we shall 

 naturally be led to enquire, as I have before remarked, what 

 can be the nature of the changes at work which lead, with 

 such certainty, but in a manner at present unknown to us, 

 to the remarkable results with which we are so familiar, but 

 which we ourselves are unable to imitate, or bring about in 

 any way. We ought, I think, in the first place, to endeavour 

 to frame an hypothesis embodying, however imperfectly, the 



* "Contemporary Review," August, 1873, p. 328. 



