LIVING MATTER. 31 



pushed forward by the growth of bioplasm behind them. 

 If you pull out a hair or nail, you reach the quick that 

 is, the living or sensitive part. We thus see that some 

 parts of our body are alive, and others in a non-living 

 state. The formed portions never grow, but the bio- 

 plasm, or living matter, grows. The growth of living 

 matter is by appropriation and transformation. Bio- 

 plasm " alone, of all matter in the world, moves toward 

 lifeless matter, incorporates it with itself, and communi- 

 cates to it, in some way we do not in the least under- 

 stand, its own transcendentally wonderful properties." 

 This motion and incorporation and endowment consti- 

 tute growth. 



" The rootlets of the plant extend themselves into the 

 soil because the living matter at their extremities moves 

 onward from the point already reached. The tree grows 

 upward against gravity by virtue of the same living 

 power of bioplasm. In every bud portions of this living 

 matter tend to move away from the spot where they 

 were produced, and stretch upward and onward in ad- 

 vance. No tissue of any living animal could be formed 

 unless the portions of bioplasm moved away from one 

 another." * 



3.) Living matter has also the power of nutrition, or 

 assimilation by selection. As this is connected with 

 growth, we might have considered it under that head, 

 but since writers of the mechanical or materialistic school 

 attempt to account for it on physical or chemical princi- 

 ples, we deem it best to examine it separately. 



The non-living always enlarges by accretion from sirn- 



* Beale's " Bioplasm." 



