LIVING MATTER. 27 



like homogeneous bioplasm, capable of indefinite exten- 

 sibility and of indefinite use. It is so constantly alter- 

 ing its outline that it does not retain the same shape for 

 two successive minutes. It obtains its food by flowing 

 around it, and digests by direct absorption. 



3. Of such simplicity of structure are all the primitive 

 forms of vegetable and of animal life, while in bone, ( ar- 

 tilage, flesh, skin, or any other structure of the higher 

 animals, we find such simple, jelly-like, living matter, or 

 bioplasm, similar in appearance to the Amoeba, scat- 

 tered in minute particles all through the tissue, and 

 careful observation will show how this living matter 

 is transformed into the formed material of the several 

 tissues. 



4. All animals and vegetables have originated from 

 minute particles of such bioplasm. Every dog, horse, 

 man, whale, jelly-fish, oak, cedar, grass, sea-weed, etc., 

 began its existence as a particle of bioplasm. And 

 every tissue and organ, no matter what its form or func- 

 tion, was built up by similar living matter. 



5. In the lowest type of animal life (the Rhizopods) 

 the vital operations are carried on without any special 

 organs, as we have seen in the Amoeba ; a little particle 

 of jelly-like bioplasm, changing itself into a variety of 

 forms, laying hold of food without members, swallowing 

 it without a mouth, digesting it without a stomach, 

 moving without muscles, while the mere separation of a 

 fragment of this jelly, however small, is sufficient to 

 originate another and independent living creature, re- 

 taining, or rather repeating, all the characteristic endow- 

 ments of the original mass. In the higher animals, 



