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that though, precisely as there are acephalous mon- 

 sters by way of exception and deformity, there may be 

 also at the very extremity of animated existence cells 

 without a nucleus I cannot help believing that this 

 nucleus itself, as analogue of the subject will yet be 

 proved the most important and indispensable of all the 

 normal cell-elements. Even the phenomena of the im- 

 pregnated egg seem to me to support this view. In the 

 egg, on impregnation, it seems to me natural (I say it 

 with a smile) that the old sun that ruled it should go 

 down, and that a new sun, stronger in the combination 

 of the new and the old, should ascend into its place ! 



Be these things as they may, we have now overwhelm- 

 ing evidence before us for concluding, with reference to 

 Mr. Huxley's first proposition, that in view of the na- 

 ture of microscopic science in view of the state of 

 belief that obtains at present as regards nucleus, mem- 

 brane, and entire cell even in view of the supporters 

 of protoplasm itself Mr. Huxley is not authorized to 

 speak of a physical matter of life ; which, for the rest, 

 if granted, would, for innumerable and, as it appears to 

 me, irrefragable reasons, be obliged to acknowledge for 

 itself, not identity, but an infinite diversity .in power, in 

 form and in substance. 



So much for the first proposition in Mr. Huxley's es- 

 say, or that which concerns protoplasm, as a supposed 

 matter of life, identical itself, and involving the identity 

 of all the various organs and organisms which it is as- 

 sumed to compose. What now of the second proposi- 

 tion, or that which concerns the materiality at once of 

 protoplasm, and of all that is conceived to derive from 

 protoplasm ? In other words, though, so to speak, for 

 organic bricks anything like an organic clay still awaits 



