182 METABOLIC FOR VITO- CHEMICAL. 



words I have suggested that this peculiar state of 

 combination should "be designated by Schwann's word, 

 'metabolic, which should be restricted to what pertains 

 to it, and we may then speak of the metabolic state of 

 matter, metabolic action/ metabolic affinity, &c., in- 

 stead of the ambiguous corresponding term vito- 

 chemical. 



Fletcher's hypothesis of the peculiar, vital, or meta- 

 bolic state of matter for long met with little attention, 

 being probably confounded with the speculations of 

 Oken respecting the primordial slime (Urschleim), from* 

 which all living things were supposed to have arisen* 

 spontaneously, and gradually developed into the- 

 species a speculation now brought into vogue again 

 by H. Spencer and Hackel. Nevertheless, when other 

 minds began to think in the same track, they could 

 not fail to hit upon similar ideas, and accordingly we 

 find Mr. Herbert Spencer, in his " Biology," published 

 in 1864, puts forward a very similar idea in what he 

 calls " Physiological Units." In the elaboration of 

 this theory he follows, step by step, the same train 

 of thought as Fletcher, arguing that the proximate 

 chemical principles, or chemical units, "albumen, 

 fibrin, gelatine, or the hypothetical protein substance," 1 

 cannot possess the property of forming the endlessly 

 varied structures of animal forms. Nor can any such 

 power be given to the cell as a morphological unit, 

 even if it had a right to that title. Therefore, he con- 

 cludes, " There seems no alternative but to suppose 

 that the chemical units combine into units immensely 

 more complex than themselves complex as they are ; 

 and that in each organism the physiological units pro- 



