12 EASY LESSONS IN VEGETABLE BIOLOGY. 



CIIAPTEE II. 



LIVING MATTER. 



1. A CAREFUL study of any living thing, either 

 vegetable or animal, will show that it is not all alive. 

 Some parts are dead, although they may retain the 

 form impressed on them by vitality, as in the case of 

 a dry branch of a tree, and may serve various pur- 

 poses in relation to the rest of the body, like resin in 

 some plants and milk in animals. When we clip the 

 hair, or pare the nails, we cut merely the dead, in- 

 sensitive part ; but at the root of the hair or nail we 

 find the "quick" the living part. By the use of 

 the microscope it has been found that every part of 

 every living body, or organism, has scattered through 

 it little particles of living matter. In the skin, flesh, 

 bones, and nerves of animals, and in all the different 

 parts of vegetables, these small particles of living 

 matter may be seen by a good instrument. It is the 

 presence of this living matter which entitles any thing 

 to be called a living being. Without this a man, a 

 horse, a tree, or a flower, would be as dead as a piece 

 of iron or chalk. 



2. This living matter, seen through the microscope, 

 looks like a bit of jelly or albumen. It is generally 



