BIOPLASM. 



been detached from already existing living matter, and 

 this living matter came from matter of some sort 

 , which lived before it. 



Of Bioplasm. Hitherto, I have employed the 

 simple term germinal or living matter, to denote the 

 active matter which is alone instrumental in the for- 

 mation of all living beings and their tissues and 

 organs ; but this term is lengthy, and, in some respects 

 awkward, and inconvenient. It cannot be used alone 

 :when speaking of a single particle, nor can it be 

 employed adjectively. The word Protoplasm has 

 been much . used for some years past, but the vague- 

 ness attached to it is fatal to its employment here. A 

 word is wanted to denote living, forming, growing, 

 self-producing germinal matter, as distinguished from 

 matter in every other state or condition whatever. 

 Now protoplasm has been applied, both in this 

 country and in Germany, to lifeless matter as well as 

 to living matter, to formed -matter and tissue as well 

 as to the formative matter. And quite recently, 

 Prof. Huxley and others have added to the confusion 

 by giving it a still wider signification so very wide, 

 indeed, that almost anything that ever formed part of 

 an organism may be called protoplasm. Roast 

 mutton, white of egg, and a number of other things 

 living and dead, having structure, as well as structure- 

 less, are said to consist of protoplasm ; so that the 

 word may include almost anything, and is not applied 

 to matter in any particular state. It becomes, in fact, 



