1 6 BIOLOGICAL LECTURES. 



cell. This view is an advance from the older view that proto- 

 plasm was wholly structureless and homogeneous. Butschli, 

 however, on the basis of his experiments and observations, 

 concludes that protoplasm is an emulsion of two fluids, which 

 mechanically presents the honeycomb structure, and that so 

 far the structure is wholly due to the physical and molecular 

 qualities of the substances which exhibit it, and that what was 

 taken to be a network peculiar to a living mass is really only 

 emulsion. He finds it, too, from protozoa to vertebrate. The 

 interfibular substance of muscle which has been taken for net- 

 work by some observers, Butschli finds a honeycomb with 

 transverse partitions, and the fibrillated axis cylinder of a 

 nerve has cross strands, indicating this also to be honeycomb. 

 As there are many degrees of fineness possible to such physical 

 structure, it would follow that if there be so called "structure- 

 less " protoplasm, it is only apparently so, because the meshes 

 are too fine to be seen. 



The honeycomb structure is believed to be an albumen con- 

 taining some molecules of a fatty acid not miscible with water ; 

 the more fluid parts which fill the interstices are watery fluid 

 containing albumen and alkali. Such chemical substances in 

 such close physical relations would necessarily permit such 

 phenomena of movement as are seen in such microscopic masses 

 of living matter. The shorthand explanation is that these are 

 due to surface tension and chemical actions ; so both structure 

 and motions are thus reducible to purely physical and chemical 

 terms. The success that has attended the efforts of chemists 

 in synthetic chemistry has emboldened some of them to assert 

 with confidence their belief that every kind of a combination 

 can be artificially produced, and that when the substance proto- 

 plasm is formed it will possess all the qualities of protoplasm, 

 including life. Now Albumen, C2ioH 33 oN52O66S 3 , is very 

 closely related to protoplasm and some kinds seem to be noth- 

 ing else. Egg Albumen contains I sulphur atom for every 70 

 of carbon, Globulin Albumen 146 and Haemoglobin Albumen 

 350, or ratios of i, 2, and 5 a rather striking fact. 



Already albuminoid bodies have been artificially made, but 

 they showed no vital qualities. If Butschli's experiments 



