Scientific Sophisms. 149 



" Huxley makes no difference between dead and living 

 and roasted matter, and he confuses together the living 

 thing, the stuff upon which it feeds, and the things formed 

 by it, or which result from its death. A muscle is pro- 

 toplasm ; nerve is protoplasm ; a limb is protoplasm ; 

 the whole body is protoplasm, and of course bone, hair, 

 shell, etc., are as much 'the physical basis of life' as 

 albuminous matter and roast mutton. But surely it would 

 be less incorrect to speak of such 'protoplasms' as the 

 physical basis of death or the physical basis of roast than 

 to call dead and roasted matter the physical basis of life. 

 . . . Huxley says lobster-protoplasm may be converted 

 into human protoplasm, and the latter again turned into 

 living lobster. But the statement is incorrect, because 

 in the process of assimilation what was once ' protoplasm ' 

 is entirely disintegrated, and is not converted into the 

 new tissue in the form of protoplasm at all ; and I must 

 remark that sheep cannot be transubstantiated into man, 

 even by ' subtle influences/ nor can dead protoplasm be 

 converted into living protoplasm, or a dead sheep into a 

 living man. And what is gained by calling the matter 

 of dead roast mutton and that of a living growing sheep 

 by the same name ? If the last is the physical basis of 

 life, one does not see how the first can be so too, unless 

 roast mutton and living sheep are identical." l 



Plain-speaking, this of Dr. Beale's ; but its 

 irresistible force is found in the well-earned 

 celebrity of its author " the foremost micro- 

 scopist of the English-speaking world." * 



1 Dr. Beale's " Protoplasm," ut sup,, pp. 100, 101. 



8 " Beale's protoplasmic theory now takes the place of 

 the cell theory. General opinion is now in accord, as 

 respects the facts, with Dr. Beale's statements on the 



