THE BEGINNINGS OF LIFE. 155 



vital processes are thought to be in their greatest acti- 

 vity. Further changes in the formed (or dead) material, 

 result, in some cases, in the formation of the various 

 secretions, and in others, in the production of the cha- 

 racteristic parts of such tissues as muscle and nerve. 



We now know, however, that the simplest living 

 things present no such distinction of parts as those 

 to which Dr. Beale alludes; and it has always ap- 

 peared to me to be a very fundamental objection to his 

 theory that so many of the most characteristically vital 

 phenomena of the higher animals should take place 

 through the agency of tissues muscle and nerve for 

 instance by far the greater part of the bulk of which 

 would, in accordance with Dr. Beale's view, have to be 

 considered as dead^ and inert. Dr. Beale has quite re- 

 cently said l : c The contractile material of muscle 

 may be shown to be continuous with the germinal 

 matter, and oftentimes a thin filament of the trans- 

 versely striated tissue may be detached with the oval 

 mass of germinal matter still connected with it, show- 

 ing that, as in tendon, the germinal matter passes un- 

 interruptedly into the formed material. This con- 

 tractile tissue is not, like the germinal matter which 

 produced it, in a living state. In the formation of the 

 contractile tissue the germinal matter seems to move 

 onwards, and at its posterior part gradually undergoes 

 conversion into the tissue. At the same time it absorbs 

 nutrient material, and thus, although a vast amount 

 1 'Protoplasm,' 2nd edition, 1870, p. 54. 



