The Organism and its Protoplasm 123 



ing the structure of organic beings should have become 

 enveloped in so much sentimental, half-mystical interest, one 

 large element in the answer soon comes into view : it is due to 

 Huxley's address. Undoubtedly what contributed most, 

 historically, to the fame of this discourse was its populariza- 

 tion of the conception that life has, in deepest reality, a 

 physical basis. Both its good fame and bad fame have 

 rested largely on this. 



I want to make it entirely clear that, important as this 

 aspect of the matter is, there is anotlier aspect very dif- 

 ferent from this and almost as im])orl'ant, with which alone 

 we are concerned in this section. 1 refer to the conception, 

 not definitely expressed by the phrase, but obviously implied 

 in it as used both by Huxley and by nearl}^ everybody since, 

 that "all life is one," and that the "seat" of it is the single 

 wonderful substance, protoplasm. Huxley's essay abounds 

 in sentences and phrases expressive of tliis notion : "Beast 

 and fowl, reptile and fish, mollusk, worm and polype, are all 

 composed of structural units of the same character, namely, 

 masses of protoplasm with a nucleus." "* "With such qual- 

 ifications as arise out of the last-mentioned fact [the chlo- 

 rophyll function of green plants] it may be truly said that 

 the acts of all living things are fundamentally one." " 

 "Hence it appears to be a matter of no great moment wliat 

 animal, or what plant, I lay under contribution for proto- 

 plasm [for food], and the fact speaks volumes for the 

 general identity of that substance in all living beings." " 



Conception of Animal Sarcode arid Plant Protoplasm as 



''Identical Stuffs'' 



Since Huxley spoke (how far because he spoke it is im- 

 possible to say definitely) this notion has become a dogma, 

 having all the objectionableness of all dogma in science. 

 "Subsequently, Max Schultze and de Bary proved, after 



