THEORY OF ONE ONLY LIVING MATTER. 3 



ology by an author whose face was directed to the 

 future, and who, abandoning all the ancient theories 

 of spiritual essences as the efficient causes of vital 

 phenomena, referred these latter solely to the inherent 

 properties of the elementary parts, and thus placed 

 himself in harmony with the philosophy of the 

 future. 



In this year, 1835, in his masterly work, " Rudi- 

 ments of Physiology," Dr. Fletcher, of Edinburgh, 

 systematically reviewed, for the last time, the old 

 hypothesis of a vital spirit, or essence, or principle, as 

 the cause of life, and gave it, we may suppose, the 

 coup de grace, for the question is seldom argued now 

 in physiological works, and it is the fashion to treat it 

 as an exploded theory, even by those who have not 

 clearly apprehended the alternative, and are really 

 still following it under other names. That alternative 

 was, however, clearly apprehended by Fletcher, and 

 with such force that he was impelled by the mere 

 course of consistent reasoning to frame an hypothesis 

 of the anatomical nature of the living matter which 

 anticipates, in a remarkable manner, the discovery of 

 the protoplasmic theory of life, which is our subject 

 here. The two chief points laid down by him are 



1. That if vitality do not reside in a separate prin- 

 ciple, but depends upon the mode of combination of 

 the elements of the organic parts themselves, there 

 can be no central vital influence communicable 

 to the parts and dominating them, for the vitality of 

 each must be inherent in itself, and, as a property of 

 the material compound, cannot be transferred to the 

 smallest distance ; each part, organ, arid even cell, there- 



12 



