BASTIAN CLELAND. 107 



in their fully formed state may vary as regards the character, 

 properties, and composition of the formed material, all were 

 first in the condition of clear, transparent, formless, living mat- 

 ter." Surely, however, he is uttering something quite contra- 

 dictory when he says, in effect, previously, and also in actual 

 words subsequently : " All that is essential to the cell or ele- 

 mentary part is mailer that is in the living state, germinal mat- 

 ter, and matter that has been in the living state formed ma- 

 terial" Such " formed material " as Dr. Beale speaks of may 

 be necessary in order to support certain theories, but it does 

 not actually exist in the simplest living things or elemental 

 living parts these are, as he himself has frequently stated, 

 " perfectly structureless " (p. 156). 



Dr. Bastian gives no reason for his want of faith in the car- 

 mine process, so his remark adds nothing to the subject. The 

 truth is, the sting of Beale's theory to Bastian lies in the diffi- 

 culty it offers to the supposed evolution of living beings 

 through mere chemical action, which is the theme of Dr. 

 Bastian's book. This subject will be touched on more at 

 length in chapter xi., but in the meantime I would remind Dr. 

 Bastian that the theory of life without a vital principle is not 

 tenable except on the theory of a living matter anatomically 

 one in a chemical state sui generis, for if the solid structures 

 undergo an isomeric change at death, how do they retain their 

 exact physical qualities 1: 



Prof. Cleland (op. cit.) says : " In the present day the proto- 

 plasmic element has assumed an enormous importance, casting 

 the nucleus into the shade ; while the reign of the cell walls 

 has come to an end altogether. But to speak of life, as i& 

 sometimes done, as if it were an inherent property of a par- 

 ticular chemical substance, is surely going too far, and is a. 

 view which has nothing true in it which is not more than thirty 

 years old ; for it has been long familiar to every one that life 

 never exists without the presence of nitrogenous substance of 

 an albumenoid character ; and though it has since been dis- 

 covered that life in various instances exists in non-nucleated, 

 structureless masses of protoplasm, that is a very different 

 thing from life being a property of protoplasm " (258). He 



