98 SELECTED ESS A YS FROM LAY SERMONS 



of those simplest forms of life, which people an immense 

 extent of the bottom of the sea, would not outweigh that of 

 all the higher living beings which inhabit the land put 

 together. And in ancient times, no less than at the present 

 day, such living beings as these have been the greatest of 

 rock builders. 



What has been said of the animal world is no less true 

 of plants. Imbedded in the protoplasm at the broad, or 

 attached, end of the nettle hair, there lies a spheroidal 

 nucleus. Careful examination further proves -that the 

 whole substance of the nettle is made up of a repetition of 

 such masses of nucleated protoplasm, each contained in a 

 wooden case, which is modified in form, sometimes into 

 a woody fibre, sometimes into a duct or spiral vessel, some- 

 times into a pollen grain, or an o\nile. Traced back to its 

 earliest state, the nettle arises as the man does, in a particle 

 of nucleated protoplasm. And in the lowest plants, as in 

 the lowest animals, a single mass of such protoplasm may 

 constitute the whole plant, or the protoplasm may exist 

 without a nucleus. 



Under these circumstances it may well be asked, how 

 is one mass of non-nucleated protoplasm to be distin- 

 guished from another? why call one " plant " and the other 

 "animal"? 



The only reply is that, so far as form is concerned, plants 

 and animals are not separable, and that, in many cases, it 

 is a mere matter of convention whether we call a given 

 organism an animal or a plant. There is a living body called 

 jEthalium septicum, which appears upon decaying vege- 

 table substances, and, in one of its forms, is common upon 

 the surfaces of tan-pits. In this condition it is, to all intents 

 and purposes, a fungus, and formerly was always regarded 

 as such; but the remarkable investigations of De Bary have 



