4 PROTOPLASMIC THEORY OF LIFE. 



fore, possesses a quasi-independent life, and they are 

 all bound together to form an individual merely by 

 the ties of a central nervous system and common cir- 

 culation or some similar means when these are not 

 present. This is not taught as anything original, and 

 it was a view more or less distinctly expressed by 

 the older physiologists, e.g., Fallopius. 



2. That the property of vitality does not reside 

 equally in the various organic structures requiring 

 such different physical properties, but is restricted 

 solely to a universally-diffused, pulpy, structureless 

 matter, similar to that of the ganglionic nerves and to 

 the gray matter of the cerebro-spinal nervous system. 

 This is, as far as I am aware, a perfectly original 

 hypothesis. 



No doubt it is easy enough to perceive that the in- 

 vocation of a spiritual principle which shall cause 

 common, chemically-combined matter to display the 

 powers of life, as an explanation, is no more philoso- 

 phical than to believe in the capacity of such agencies 

 as witchcraft and magic to do work without adequate 

 physical power. But when we come to particulars, 

 and ask the physiologist who asserts that vitality is 

 merely the property oj.a certain chemical combina- 

 tion of matter just asKquosrtlv is the property of the 

 chemical compound we call water, how it comes that 

 from no known chemical action or process can we ob- 

 tain results the least like living action, he is at fault. 

 He can name and define by chemical tests the matter 

 after death, which a moment before was living, but he 

 cannot now perform a single vital function with this 

 very matter presumed to be identical, and if he does 



