( 4i ) "3 



protoplasm has, like water, a chemical and physical 

 structure ; but that, unlike water, it has also an organ- 

 ized or organic structure. Now this, on the part of 

 protoplasm, is a possession in excess ; and with re- 

 lation to that excess there can be no grounds for anal- 

 ogy. This, perhaps, is what Mr. Huxley has omitted 

 to consider. When insisting on attributing to proto- 

 plasm the qualities it possessed, because of its chemical 

 and physical structure, if it was for chemical and phys- 

 ical structure that we attributed to water its qualities, 

 he has simply forgotten the addition to protoplasm of a 

 third structure that can only be named organic. " If 

 the phenomena exhibited by water are its properties, so 

 are those presented by protoplasm, living or dead, its 

 properties." When Mr. Huxley speaks thus, Exactly 

 so, we may answer : " living or dead !" That alterna- 

 tive is simply slipped in and passed ; but it is in that 

 alternative that the whole matter lies. Chemically, 

 dead protoplasm is to Mr. Huxley quite as good as 

 living -protoplasm. As a sample of the article, he is 

 quite content with dead protoplasm, and even swallows 

 it, he says, in the shape of bread, lobster, mutton, etc., 

 with all the satisfactory results to be desired. - Still, as 

 concerns the argument, it must be pointed out that it is 

 only these that can be placed on the same level as wa- 

 ter ; and that living protoplasm is not only unlike wa- 

 ter, but it is unlike dead protoplasm. Living protoplasm, 

 namely, is identical with dead protoplasm only so far as 

 its chemistry is concerned (if even so much as that) ; 

 and it is quite evident, consequently, that difference be- 

 tween the two cannot depend on that in which they are 

 identical cannot depend on the chemistry. Life, then, 

 is no affair of chemical and physical structure, and must 



