THEORY OF ONE ONLY LIVING MATTER. 11 



matter in analysis and in producing new syntheses, that 

 he thinks reasons are not wanting to lead us to suppose 

 that it may resolve and transmute the so-called simple 

 elements themselves. 



The intimate dependence of every phase of vital ac- 

 tion, and of the different properties of the living matter, 

 throughout the whole range of animals and plants, on 

 a corresponding change of molecular composition of the 

 living matter, made up as it is of the same few ulti- 

 mate elements, cannot as yet be demonstrated experi- 

 mentally, because finer analyses of the products of 

 different varieties of living matter, after death, are 

 still wanting owing to the difficulty of its isolation > 

 and also, because this, no doubt, may j consist in the 

 mere arrangement of the atoms in the extraordinarily 

 complex molecules of the living matter, as we see in 

 ordinary chemistry with the various series of isomeric 

 bodies. 



Not only is every vital action traced to molecular 

 change and to consumption and regeneration of this 

 structureless, semi-fluid matter, combined in a way 

 entirely sui generis, but the initiation of these changes 

 is brought by Fletcher into absolute dependence on < 

 stimuli, and all spontaneity or autonomy is denied to * 

 matter in the living just as in the dead state. Thus 

 every physiological action is reduced to dependence on 

 adequate causes exactly in the same way as the phe- ? 

 nomena of the inorganic world. The necessity for 

 stimuli to all muscular motion, and to the senses, and 

 to many secretions, is generally recognized, but that 

 they are equally essential for growth, develop- 



