1901} MICROSCOPICAL JOURNAL. 65 
seems to me, thoroughly explained as yet. I explain 
it in this manner, and I will illustrate in this way. Let 
us drop a piece of sodium, (natrium the Germans call it, 
and we Latinize it by calling it natrium in chemistry and 
denote it by the symbol Na), into water and watch what 
takes place. We represent the water by the symbol H, 
O. When the Na comes into contact with the H, O, it 
immediately takes up the O and forms the compound Na 
O. At the same time it sets the two equivalents of hy- 
drogen free. When O unites with Na, a chemical action 
is set up and heat is generated, heat enough to fuse the 
Na O, and when a substance is fused it becomes a liquid 
and when a liquid it assumes the form of a sphere which 
rests upon the plain surface of the H, O. But H,, hy- 
drogen, is a gas, the lightest substance known. It forms 
just at that point where the Na O, the sphere, rests upon 
the water, and tends to escape upwards, (for it cannot es- 
cape downwards) and pushes the globule of Na O to one 
side. As the globule of Na O has thus begun its travels 
it rushes to the opposite side until it rolls upwards on the 
surface of the plain of water until it meets the side of the 
containing vessel when it rolls down again. 
Thus the motion has commenced. A motion which re- 
member resides in, and is so to speak, a portion of a dead 
particle of matter. Now what does that motion consist 
of, and what is its cause? The chemical or physical ac- 
tion of the molecule of this fluid,—Na in this case, act- 
ing on the molecule of the fluid, Hy O in this case. And 
all motion is this chemical or physical action. I say all 
motion, be it in a molecule of the so-called dead matter, 
Na O, or a molecule of the so-called living matter, proto- 
plasm, a monad or a man himself. 
And in what can the so-called living matter be distin- 
guished from the dead matter? Nothing but motion, 
and dead matter has that also. This monad has been ban- 
died about between the animal kingdom, as usually rec- 
