256 Anima Mundi. 



M A mass of living protoplasm is simply a molecular 

 machine of great complexity, the total results of the 

 working of which, or its vital phenomena, depend, on the 

 one hand, on its construction, and on the other, upon the 

 energy supplied to it ; and to speak of ' vitality ' as any- 

 thing but the name of a series of operations, is as if one 

 should talk of the horologity of a clock" l 



This oracular deliverance is worthy of the 

 most careful consideration, not less from its own 

 merits than from the celebrity of its author. 

 From it we learn that a " living " thing is " a 

 machine;" "simply" a machine. "The results 

 of the working of" this machine Milton's 

 " Paradise Lost," for example ; or Shakspere's 

 Plays ; Galileo and Kepler, Newton and Pascal, 

 Socrates and Savonarola, Stephenson and 

 Edison, Turner and Ruskin, " the total 

 results" are due to two sources. The first 

 of these is " its construction ; " the second, is 

 " the energy supplied to it." 



Since, however, to our instructor not less than 

 to ourselves, the " construction " of " a mass of 

 living protoplasm " is an unfathomable secret, 

 of which, notwithstanding his high attainments, 

 even he is profoundly ignorant ; and since " the 

 energy supplied to it " remains no\v, as ever, 

 an absolutely unknown quantity ; it might 



1 Prof. Huxley, Encyc. Brit., Art. " Biology," 1875. 



