(43) us 



plasm dead to protoplasm alive. That relation is not 

 an analogy but an antithesis, the antithesis of antithe- 

 ses. In it, in fact, we are in presence of the one in- 

 communicable gulf the gulf of all gulfs that gulf 

 which Mr. Huxley's protoplasm is as powerless to 

 efface as any other material expedient that has ever 

 been suggested since the eyes of men first looked into 

 it the mighty gulf between death and life. 



The differences alluded to (they are, in order, organi- 

 zation and life, the objective idea design, and the sub- 

 jective idea thought), it may be remarked, are admit- 

 ted by those very Germans to whom protoplasm, name 

 and thing, is due. They, the most advanced and inno- 

 vating of them, directly avow that there is present in 

 the cell " an architectonic principle that has not yet 

 been detected." In pronouncing protoplasm capable 

 of active or vital movements, they do by that refer, they 

 admit also, to an immaterial force, and they ascribe the 

 processes exhibited by protoplasm in so many words 

 not to the molecules, but to organization and life. It is 

 remarked by Kant that " the reason of the specific 

 mode of existence of every part of a living body lies in 

 the whole, whilst with dead masses each part bears this 

 reason within itself;" and this indeed is how the two 

 worlds are differentiated. A drop of water, once 

 formed, is there passive for ever, susceptible to influ- 

 ence, but indifferent to influence, and what influence 

 reaches it is wholly from without. It may be added to, 

 it may be subtracted from ; but infinitely apathetic 

 quantitatively, it is qualitatively independent. It is in- 

 different to its own physical parts. It is without con- 

 tractility, without alimentation, without reproduction, 

 without specific function. Not so the cell, in which the 



