FLETCHER'S DILEMMA. 77 



s 



question, is, of course, continually renewed and consumed, 

 like all the other tissues of the body, by molecular processes, 

 the seat of which is the parenchyma, which thus effects incessant 

 changes in this tissue, not only as interwoven with the sub- 

 stance of every other organ, but also as entering into the com- 

 position of the minute vessels of which itself consists." How 

 can the parenchyma, or the capillary walls, take any vital part 

 in the formation of the substance, whose presence alone con- 

 stitutes their vitality, and yet which property cannot be trans- 

 ferred to the smallest distance? Speaking in the present 

 language of the force-doctrine, the vital power is not the off- 

 spring of a force, and, therefore, cannot be conveyed or trans- 

 ferred through other kinds of matter, or the interstellar ether, 

 so as to operate at a distance, but it is the result of an affinity 

 proper to one particular aggregation of matter alone, and can, 

 therefore, only act upon particles within that ; nor can any 

 catalytic action take place between portions of matter in the 

 vital and chemical states of combination respectively. 



It is obvious how the discovery of the actual living 

 matter and the theory of Beale remove the dilemma 

 of Fletcher, and render intelligible and comparatively 

 simple the view which defines life as the molecular 

 actions or changes taking place in a substance ana- 

 tomically one and chemically compounded in a manner 

 wholly sui generis. But, although strongly prepos- 

 sessed in favour of Beale's theory, having waited for it 

 all these years, I cannot but allow that it is opposed 

 "by certain difficulties not yet explained satisfactorily. 

 For instance, it is stated that every tissue or secretion, 

 solid, liquid, or gaseous, consists of elements which 

 were immediately before in the living state and formed 

 part of that protoplasm which dies into the said secre- 

 tion. Now, the protoplasm is always a most complex 

 compound of from five to seven elemental constituents, 



