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sting, begins already with modified protoplasm ; and 

 we have the authority of Rindfleisch for asserting that 

 " in every different tissue we must look for a different 

 initial term of the productive series." This, evidently, 

 is a very strong light on the original multiplicity of 

 protoplasm, which the consideration, as we have seen, 

 of the various plants and animals, has made, further, 

 infinite. This is enough ; but there is no wish to evade 

 beginning with the very beginning with absolutely 

 pure initial protoplasm, if it can but be given us in any 

 reference. The simple egg that, probably is the be- 

 ginning that, probably, is the original identity ; yet 

 even there we find already distribution of the identity 

 into infinite difference. This, certainly, with reference 

 to the various organisms, but with reference also to the 

 various tissues. That we regard the egg as the begin- 

 ning, and that we do not start, like the smaller excep- 

 tional physiological school, with molecules themselves, 

 depends on this, that the great Germans so often allu- 

 ded to, Kiihne among them, still trust in the experi- 

 ments of Pasteur ; and while they do not deny the pos- 

 sibility, or even the fact, of molecular generation, still 

 feel justified in denying the existence of any observa- 

 tion that yet unassailably attests a generatio cequivoca. 

 By such authority as this the simple philosophical spec- 

 tator has. no choice but to take his stand ; and therefore 

 it is that I assume the egg as the established beginning, 

 so far, of all vegetable and animal organisms. To the 

 egg, too, as the beginning, Mr. Huxley, though the 

 lining of the nettle-sting is his representative proto- 

 plasm, at least refers. " In the earliest condition of 

 the human organism," he says, in allusion to the white 

 (vagrant) corpuscles of the blood, " in that state in 



