PHYSICAL AND VITAL PHENOMENA. 39 



absorption of nourishment and the production 

 of new bioplasm. These two processes, the 

 formation of tissue by bioplasm, and the pro- 

 duction of new bioplasm by the appropriation 

 of nutritive matters, proceed at the same time. 

 What physical or chemical operation yet dis- 

 covered can be compared with these nutritive 

 and formative processes ? Between the two 

 sets of phenomena, physical and vital, not the 

 faintest analogy can be shown to exist. The 

 idea of a particle of muscular or nerve tissue 

 being formed by a process akin to crystallisa- 

 tion, appears ridiculous to anyone who has 

 studied the phenomena, or who is acquainted 

 with the structure of these tissues. It is dif- 

 ficult to conceive how anyone who had thought 

 over the facts, which are well known to every 

 working student of physiology, could have suc- 

 ceeded in so misleading himself and others, as 

 even to hint that the formation of tissue of any 

 kind could be explained by physics and chem- 

 istry. There is not the shadow of argument 

 founded upon fact, or upon the results of obser- 

 vation, to give countenance to such a doctrine. 

 The idea that the ultimate molecules of living 

 matter arrange themselves, or are arranged, by 



