THEORY OF ONE ONLY LIVING MATTER. 7 



of matter, as might be expected Fletcher gives no 

 countenance to the idea of any intermediate stage 

 between them any stage, as it were, common to both 

 which would permit the gradation of one into the 

 other. There, is no such thing as vito-chemical in the 

 sense of partaking of both states. On the contrary, 

 the division is sharp, abrupt, and absolute, and be- 

 tween them is an unfathomable gulf. 



Vitality is thus a property inherent in each particle 

 of the living matter, and as all the parts of a complex 

 organism differ in function, each part has a specific 

 kind of vitality peculiar to itself. An individual of 

 any species is thus a complex congeries of a number of 

 subordinate quasi-independent living units,, whose life 

 is complete in themselves. It is impossible even to 

 touch upon the large question of the development of 

 the germ into the harmonious arrangement of different 

 organs and parts in perfect adaptation to their pur- 

 pose, but it may be stated that in the absence of any 

 central, overruling, semi-rational, vital principle, Fletcher 

 holds "that the development of those parts is immedi- 

 ately effected by certain inherent powers, of a different 

 nature indeed, but not less definite in their operation 

 than those which determine the crystalization of a 

 mineral " (i. 65). 



With respect to the second proposition, that this pe- 

 culiar property of vitality does not reside in the tissues 

 indiscriminately, but in one anatomical element alone, 

 it is sufficiently obvious that as the various tissues 

 differ extremely in their physical properties, and these 

 latter are almost exactly the same after as before 

 death, it is hardly to be expected that the living 



