2 PROTOPLASMIC THEORY OF LIFE. 



physiologists were far from clear, and the ideas of 

 some central vital influence, which ruled over all local 

 actions, or even furnished vital influence to them, were 

 still in the ascendant. 



In 1835, Joh. Muller commenced an essay on 

 " Organism and Life " with the following words of 

 Kant : " The cause of the particular mode of existence 

 of each part of a living body resides in the whole, 

 while in dead masses each part contains the cause 

 within itself."* The sense in which this was taken is, 

 that some central power or influence in each individual, 

 presided over the formation, nutrition, and vital action 

 of all parts, and correlated them into an harmonious 

 whole, and, in fact, furnished vital influence or power 

 to the separate parts. This is just what the vital 

 principle was assumed to effect in olden times, and, in 

 fact, to ascribe a power of this nature to any, even 

 material parts, such as a central nervous system, under 

 the name of "vital force and power," or "directing 

 agency," or " directing power," is nothing better than 

 the old vital principle with a new name. 



We see, thus, in the above-mentioned work, the 

 author, then the highest authority in Germany, and, 

 .at the same time, an original observer, has, as it were, 

 his face still directed backwards to the old theory of a 

 spirit, or, at least, central power of some kind animat- 

 ing each living individual, and, with the help of the 

 material organs, performing the functions of life. 

 Such a work soon belongs to the past. 



In the same year appeared another work on physi- 



* Strieker, Syd. Soc., vol. xlvii. p. 1. 



