226 WHERE BEALE AND FLETCHER DIFFER. 



necessary, but not more so than to the simplest chemical 

 compound. Force is to life as the organ-blower to the- 

 musician essential, indeed, but utterly subordinate. 



There remain still a few words to be said on the 

 really slight difference which divides the protoplasmic 

 theory from that of Beale, but though slight at the 

 origin, yet just as two streams close to each other at 

 the watershed, soon diverge widely, the difference 

 leads to a total estrangement in their views of general 

 philosophy. Beale and Fletcher both believe that the 

 protoplasm is the sole seat of vitality, and both believe 

 that the ultimate elements composing it are not 

 chemically combined into the proximate principles we 

 find therein after death. With Fletcher this difference 

 of composition is simply taken as the cause of the 

 different properties of dead and living matter. But 

 with Beale that is not allowed to be sufficient, and a 

 " separable force or power " is postulated. This, he 

 admits, cannot be a force, nor does he allow it to be a 

 result of the properties of protoplasm, therefore it must 

 be an entity. When new living matter is formed from 

 pabulum, a portion of this separable force or power is 

 supposed to be transmitted from the pre-existing living 

 matter which has the faculty of creating an unlimited 

 quantity of it out of nothing, while at death it is again 

 annihilated, contrary to what obtains of ordinary 

 force, which may change its form, but cannot cease or 

 be annihilated (" Microscope," p. 324). Some forms of 

 vital power, however, are immortal, viz., that in the 

 gray matter of man's brain " may be freed from the 

 material and yet exist without cessation, extinction, or 

 annihilation." Putting aside for the present this. 



