10 PROTOPLASMIC THEORY OF LIFE. 



process may be concerned in the perception of the 

 stimulus and transformation of the needful force ; how 

 osmosis, chemical fermentation, interchange of oxygen 

 and carbonic acid by the haemoglobin, and all the 

 various processes, strictly chemical and physical of 

 animals and plants, are performed in harmony with 

 vital actions, properly so-called. These last, residing 

 in this "nitrogenous, pulpy, translucent, homogeneous 

 matter, yielding, after death, fibrin," and which is 

 everywhere interwoven with the tissues according to 

 the degree to which they can be called living tissues, 

 of course, must vary in strict dependence on the 

 changes in quantity and quality of this marvellous 

 combination of matter so utterly unlike ordinary che- 

 mical compounds, and which alone possesses the faculty 

 of growth or self-renewal and increase from heteroge- 

 neous matter. I With every vital action, including for- 

 mation and absorption of tissue and secretions, assimi- 

 lation, respiration ; generation ; with every evolution 

 of force ; with every sensation, thought, and act of 

 volition, some portion of this wonderful substance 

 must pass from the vital down to the chemical state 

 must be consumed, in fact and a corresponding quan- 

 tity of new living matter assimilated from the pa- 

 bulum. 



The process of assimilation, lie held, was always truly 

 vital, and the components of the tissues were never 

 absorbed and merely deposited unchanged from the 

 nutrient fluid, but were always, however near in compo- 

 sition, decomposed, and their elements rearranged in the 

 process ; and so marvellous is the power of the living 



