56 THE PHASES OF 



The series of progressive changes, tending toward the forma- 

 tion of protoplasm, proves that the original granule is the 

 morphologically simplest appearance for our present means of 

 observation. The growth and splitting of the granule results in 

 the appearance of a reticular lump, a rather complicated organism, 

 hitherto termed " protoplasm "; and thus the relation between 

 the two is about the same as that between an ovum and a grown 

 animal body. That a single lump of protoplasm f. i., an 

 amoeba is endowed with all fundamental vital properties attrib- 

 uted to the whole organism f. i., a mammal is acknowledged 

 to-day by all physiologists. M. Foster attributes to the amoeba, 

 which he considers an " undifferentiated protoplasm/' the follow- 

 ing properties : It is contractile ; it is irritable and automatic ; it 

 is receptive and assimilative; it is metabolic and secretory; it 

 is respiratory ; it is reproductive. 



All this holds good for isolated lumps of living matter, sus- 

 pended in the liquids of the animal body. Is it applicable to 

 complex masses of this matter to tissues ? 



As I shall demonstrate later, there is no such thing as an 

 isolated, individual cell in the tissues, as all cells prove to 

 be joined throughout the organism, thus rendering the body 

 in toto an individual. What was formerly thought to be a cell 

 is, in the present view, a node of a reticulum traversing the 

 tissue. Neither is there a good reason for speaking of proto- 

 plasm, or for claiming that it is protoplasm which builds up the 

 animal body; for living matter appears in the organism in 

 various shapes, and it is but one of these, viz., an advanced 

 stage of development of the living matter, which was hitherto 

 termed " protoplasm." 



According to my observations, we have not to deal with 

 cells as form-elements, either in the fluids or in the tissues of 

 the animal body, but only with living matter, varying in its ap- 

 pearance from the just perceptible granule to the bulk of the body 

 of the largest animal. Single lumps of living matter may either 

 look homogeneous or show a net-like arrangement, whereas the ' 

 body of an animal is a continuous mass of living matter or net- 

 work arrangement, and contains fluids in blood and lymph vessels, 

 in which there are suspended isolated bodies, either homoge- 

 neous or reticular in structure, as analogous to the granules 

 which float in the vacuoles of an amoeba. The diiference in 

 the aspect of the tissues depends on the presence of a lifeless 

 basis-substance only, a derivative of the lifeless " protoplasmic 



