136 



THE AMERICAN MONTHLY 



[July, 



II 



magnifying powers which have yet 

 been constructed. For this idea 

 there is no sufficient justification. It 

 is one of those assumptions in elab- 

 orating which the modern materialist 

 is so ingenious. In this way he 

 struggles, and with some success, 

 to postpone for a time the inevitable 

 fall of the system he has endeavored 

 to make popular in spite of the over- 

 whelming evidence of facts against it. 

 Here I must remark that the word 

 " structure " as employed by physi- 

 cists is used in a sense utterly distinct 

 from that in which we use the word. 

 This is evident enough if we consider 

 what is understood by the " structure " 

 of a crystal and the " structure " of 

 an organ or tissue. ***** 



2. There is the view supported by 

 myself, and in favor of which I have 

 adduced evidence which I believe to 

 be perfectly convincing, that living 

 matter has no definite structure what- 

 ever — that, in fact, its particles, and 

 very probably their constituent atoms, 

 are in a state of very active move- 

 ment, which renders structure and 

 fixity of arrangement impossible — 

 this active movement being an essen- 

 tial condition of the living state, 

 which latter ceases when the move- 

 ment comes to a standstill. Accord- 

 ing to this view the idea of structure 

 as belonging to living matter is in- 

 conceivable. ****** 



Magnify living matter as we may, 

 nothing can be demonstrated but an 

 extremely delicate, transparent, ap- 

 parently semi-fluid substance. But ob- 

 servations on some specimens under 

 certain advantages of illumination, 

 and with the aid of the very highest 

 magnifying power that can be brought 

 to bear, favor the conclusion that 

 living matter should be regarded as 

 consisting of infinite numbers of in- 

 finitely minute particles, varying 

 much in size, and possibly capable of 

 coalescing, free to move amongst one 

 another, as they exist surrounded by 

 a fluid medium which contains the 

 materials in solution for their nutri- 

 tion and other substances. 



One may transport oneself in im- 

 agination into infinite space, amid the 

 never-ceasing vibrations visible and 

 invisible — " The lucid interspace of 

 world and world, where never creeps 

 a cloud, or moves a wind," and may 

 perhaps all but see combined in one 

 mental image, as they ever course 

 through space, suns and worlds and 

 systems. And although at first the 

 mind is almost lost in the contempla- 

 tion of the infinite physical vastness 

 presented it, it is nevertheless able to 

 seize in some degree a more than 

 shadowy conception of the exactness 

 and regularity of the eternal move- 

 ments, and to recognize the never- 

 ceasing operation in the material 

 universe of inflexible, unchanging 

 law. 



But he who in imagination can 

 succeed in mentally placing himself 

 amid the atoms in the interatomic 

 spaces of a living particle, will be in 

 the very heart as it were of an infinity 

 of a very different order — infinite 

 movement and change affecting in- 

 finitely minute particles, so very near 

 to one another that the matter of one 

 may as it were run into that of the 

 other, and the masses divide and 

 subdivide again. Of all this move- 

 ment and change of particles how 

 very little of what occurs in a portion 

 of matter not more than the one 

 hundred-thousandth of an inch in 

 diameter can be comprised in one 

 mental image ? But beyond all this 

 there is the power of prospective 

 change, acting through years it may 

 be, which is somehow associated with 

 the minute particles of living matter, 

 as well as many complex phenomena 

 of which the mind cannot take cog- 

 nizance as a whole, but must consider, 

 as it were, one by one in several suc- 

 cessive pictures. ***** 



But thought may take us yet fur- 

 ther. Gradually passing inwards 

 towards the centre, through vast con- 

 centric layers of particles, we arrive 

 at last in imagination near the centre 

 of a particle far too minute to be vis- 

 ible, where the atoms of lifeless mat- 



