MOLECULAR ORGANIZATION OF PROTOPLASM. 195 



tion" by Dr. Bastian. The possibility of the sufficient 

 variety of the said molecular organization is well ex- 

 pressed by Gegenbauer, who says that the complicated 

 formal life-phenomena of the protoplasm even grant- 

 ing that it cannot be analyzed farther anatomically 

 are nevertheless of such a nature that they not only 

 pre-suppose a more complicated molecular constitution 

 than we can as yet understand or imagine, but that 

 the protoplasm may in this respect be placed on an 

 equality with complicated organized beings ; and Pro- 

 fessor Rutherford thus expresses himself, " There ap- 

 pears to be no reason for supposing that two particles 

 of protoplasm, which possess a similar microscopic 

 structure, must act in the same way ; for the physicist 

 knows that molecular structure and action are beyond 

 the ken of the microscopist, and that within apparently 

 homogeneous jelly-like particles of protoplasm there 

 may be differences of molecular constitution and 

 arrangement, which determine widely different pro- 

 perties " (" Brit. Assoc.," 1873). 



The theory of the constitution of chemical compounds of 

 S. Brown, taken in connection with the recent revival of 

 dynamic theory of molecular action of Lucretius by the mathe- 

 matical physicists, is most interesting to us, especially as bear- 

 ing on the supposed spontaneity of vital action. It is becoming 

 rapidly accepted among physicists that, instead of being at rest, 

 the particles of matter are all in a state of vivid molecular 

 movement, and by this are to be explained nearly all the 

 secondary properties of matter. The elasticity of the gases and 

 the diffusion of liquids are already proved to depend on mere 

 molecular movements; the theory agrees also with the doc- 

 trine of interior work, and explains the apparently spontaneous 

 action of chemical changes in solutions, and although the exact 



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