42 PRESENT-DAY RATIONALISM 



Lankester offers no explanation as to the origin of the 

 albuminoids. 



To bring this question up to date " a new suggestion 

 as to the nature and origin of protoplasm has been made 

 by Herrara.i By triturating the acetate, carbonate, or 

 chloride of calcium with glacial phosphoric acid, and 

 then treating the resulting substance with salt solutions, 

 the author obtains a mass which behaves under the 

 microscope very much as does protoplasm. It shows 

 amoeboid motion, a vacuolar or granular structure, plas- 

 molyzes in certain cases when treated with plasmolyzing 

 solutions, can be stained with methyl green, has its 

 movements accelerated by sodium chloride, etc." 



But, in reality, we are still no nearer to answering the 

 question : How was protoplasmy?rj-^ made in Nature ? In 

 all attempts at its artificial construction, Man replaces 

 Natural Directivity, and supplies the materials together, 

 which as far as we know, Nature does not ; certainly not 

 in all the compounds mentioned in this extract from the 

 Gardener's Chronicle, p. 459 (Dec. 20, 1902). 



Haeckel also says that the element carbon is the 

 effective one in making protoplasm according to his 

 " carbon theory " ; but nitrogen is really the one which 

 allows of the " facility of decomposition ". 



It is the presence of this element which accounts for 

 the explosiveness of gunpowder, gun-cotton, etc. It is 

 also nitrogen which facilitates rapid decomposition of 

 organic matters. If white of egg or albumen be treated 

 in the same way as to temperature, etc., with sugar, it is 

 the former (not the latter, which consists of water and 

 carbon only) which decomposes. 



Neither Haeckel nor Lankester has brought us one 



' A. L. Herrara, " Le protoplasnia de mttaphosphate de chaux," 

 Mem. Rev. Soc, Sci., " Antonio Alzate," Mexico, 17, 201-213, 1902. 



