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and animal life. These are, shortly, the two proposi- 

 tions which we have already seen, and to which, in their 

 order, we now pass. 



All organisms, then, whether animal or vegetable, 

 have been understood for some time back to originate 

 in and consist of cells ; but the progress of physiology 

 has seemed now to substitute for cells a single matter of 

 life, protoplasm ; and it is here that Mr. Huxley sees his 

 cue. Mr. Huxley's very first word is the " physical basis 

 or matter of life ;" and he supposes " that to many the 

 idea that there is such a thing may be novel." This, then, 

 so far, is what is new in Mr. Huxley's contribution. He 

 seems to have said to himself, if formerly the whole 

 world was thought kin in an "ideal" or formal element, 

 organization, I shall now finally complete this identifi- 

 cation in a " physical " or material element, protoplasm. 

 In short, what at this stage we are asked to witness in 

 the essay is, the identification of all living beings what- 

 ever in the identity of protoplasm. As there is a 

 single matter, clay, which is the matter of all bricks, so 

 there is a single matter, protoplasm, which is the matter 

 of all organisms. " Protoplasm is the clay of the pot- 

 ter, which, bake it and paint it as he will, remains clay, 

 separated by artifice, and not by nature, from the com- 

 monest brick or sun-dried clod." Now here I cannot 

 help stopping a moment to remark that Mr. Huxley 

 puts emphatically his whole soul into this sentence, and 

 evidently believes it to be, if we may use the word, a 

 clincher. But, after all, does it say much? or rather, 

 does it say anything ? To the question, " Of what are 

 you made ?" the answer, for a long time now, and by 

 the great mass of human beings who are supposed civi- 

 lized, has been "Dust." Dust, and the same dust, has 



