24 TOILERS IN THE SEA. 



in the appearance of the soft parts ends ; and so it 

 must be with any protoplasmic matter. Let this 

 episode of Bathybius be remembered as a caution by 

 future investigators, and it will have served a good 

 purpose." 



It would avail nothing to enter upon the discus- 

 sions which were at one time, not long distant, so 

 general as to the basis of life. After all that has been 

 said, or can be said, the mystery of life is a mystery 

 still. On the one hand were those who maintained 

 that the formation of living beings out of inanimate 

 matter, by the conversion of physical and chemical 

 into vital modes of force, was going on daily and 

 hourly ; that, in fact, the actions of living beings are 

 not due to any mysterious vitality, or vital force or 

 power, but are physical and chemical in their nature. 

 On the other hand are those who contend that such 

 an explanation is illusory and insufficient. One of 

 these writes thus : " In all living beings there exists 

 matter in a peculiar state which we call living. This 

 living matter manifests phenomena which are different 

 from any phenomena proved to be due to the opera- 

 tion of any known laws. It moves in a manner which 

 cannot be explained by physics. Changes are effected 

 in its composition which cannot be accounted for, and 

 various substances are formed by it which may exhibit 

 structure, properties, and a capacity for acting in a 

 manner which is peculiar to living beings, and cannot 



