FORM, STRUCTURE, COLOUR, MECHANISM. 7 



parent semi-fluid matter capable of moving in every 

 part and in all directions. Man and animals, plants, 

 fungi, monads, thus exhibit the same appearances, 

 and the matter of which they consist exhibits similar 

 characters. Each primitive particle was derived from 

 matter like it which existed before it. It was simply 

 detached from a parent mass. 



12. Form, structure, colour, mechanism. I hope to 

 convince you that all form, colour, structure, me- 

 chanism, observed at a later period in the life- hi story 

 of living things, result from changes in this primary 

 structureless, colourless material. This primary 

 matter of living beings which looks like mere jelly or 

 a little clear gum or syrup, exhibits actions and un- 

 dergoes changes unlike those occurring in every other 

 kind of matter known to us. Although we can make 

 many different substances exhibiting very remarkable 

 properties, and machines capable of doing many kinds 

 of work, and constructing wonderful things ; no one 

 has ever been able to obtain any chemical compound 

 having the properties of this living speck, or any 

 mechanism which acts as this wonderful transparent 

 matter acts. The colourless, structureless matter, 

 characteristic of and peculiar to all life on the earth, 

 and in air and in water, is capable of moving in every 

 part and in every direction. The movements are not 

 such as are produced by vibrations communicated to 

 the fluid or semi-fluid substance from matter in vibra- 

 tion in its neighbourhood, but the impulse proceeds 

 from within the matter itself. The cause of the move- 

 ment has not been ascertained. The facts will be 

 more particularly described in Lecture IV. 



13. Conversion of the non-living into the living. 

 Every kind of transparent colourless living matter 

 takes up lifeless material which it changes. Certain 

 elements of this are assimilated and converted into 

 matter like that of which the living matter consists. 

 After a time the matter which has become living under- 



