Scientific Sophisms. 113 



In all this, however, there is nothing new but 

 the nomenclature. 1 But the case is widely 

 altered when Mr. Huxley proceeds to assert 

 that amid all the diversities of living things and 

 living beings there exists a threefold unity : a 

 unity of faculty, a unity of form, and a unity of 

 substance. In relation to the first of these, for 

 example, faculty, power, activity ; according 

 to Mr. Huxley, even human activities must be 

 referred to three categories contractility, ali- 

 mentation, and reproduction ; and for the lower 

 forms of life, whether animal or vegetable, there 

 are no fewer than these same three. The 

 granulated, semi-fluid layer which constitutes 

 the lining of the woody case of the nettle-sting 

 is possessed of contractility. And in this 

 possession of contractile substance, other plants 

 are as the nettle, and all animals are as plants. 

 Protoplasm is common to the whole of them ; 

 and this lining in the sting of the nettle is pro- 

 toplasm. So that between the powers of the 

 lowest plant or animal and those of the highest, 

 the difference is one not of kind, but only of 

 degree. The colourless blood-corpuscles in 



1 Aixd this nomenclature, though new, is by no means 

 improved. It is inexact, indefinite, indiscriminate, and 

 therefore necessarily misleading. See below ; especially 

 pages 132, 135-142. 



