100 BIOPLASM OF LIVING 



selves from place to place ; they may insinuate them- 

 selves through the narrowest apertures, or creep 

 through very minute fissures and channels. They 

 may climb through water, and there is even reason 

 to think they may move upwards through perfectly 

 still air by virtue of their capacity for vital movement. 

 The division and subdivision of living matter, and 

 hence the multiplication of living beings, are among 

 the results of vital movements. These vital move- 

 ments too are the cause of many phenomena 

 which are characteristic of man and the higher 

 animals. That is, a chain of changes, each being a 

 consequence of an antecedent change, may be traced 

 backwards until at last we arrive at the movements 

 occurring in the living matter, beyond which we can- 

 not go ; for we cannot ascertain the cause of these 

 movements, although we know it must be closely 

 related to life itself, for life cannot be conceived of 

 without movement. The growth and multiplication 

 of disease germs, their introduction into the body, 

 their passage into the blood, and their subsequent 

 wanderings, are intimately connected with their 

 capacity for vital movement. Their formation I shall 

 endeavour to prove is associated with greatly increased 

 activity of vital movements, and the undue nutrition 

 of certain forms of the bioplasm of the organism. In 

 order to render intelligible to the reader the grounds 

 of my views, it will be necessary in the first place to 

 offer some general remarks concerning the nature and 



