QUALITIES NOT SUPERADDED ESSENCES. 227 



reference to the soul of man which he has no warrant for 

 placing in the same category as mere life, which latter wo 

 possess in common with animals and plants and which 

 is certainly mortal, this revival of a spiritual principle 

 or essence of whose nature we can form no conception 

 and which explains nothing, is a very strange thing in 

 the present day. If we build a house we do not 

 require to add a separable force or power of edificiality, 

 nor if we make any chemical compound is any such, 

 thing additional necessary to give it its special qualities. 

 The living actions, says Dr. Beale, cannot be explained 

 by the properties of the matter of the protoplasm, 

 these are permanent endowments, while the vital pro- 

 perties are superadded temporarily, and when removed 

 cannot be restored. The properties of sugar or quinine- 

 may just as well be said to depend on the addition of 

 a power of saccharinity, or of bitterness and fluor- 

 escence, for these properties are no more permanent than 

 those of protoplasm. The moment these bodies are 

 decomposed, the said properties are gone. But, says 

 Dr. Beale, you can make these bodies again, and 

 in that case the said properties would be there again,, 

 and thus they may be said to be permanent, whereas 

 you never can make protoplasm again when once de- 

 stroyed. As a matter of fact, we cannot make sugar 

 or quinine again when once destroyed, and may never 

 be able to do so, and we may grant that we never shall 

 make protoplasm, but that does not alter the reasoning 

 that if these compounds are by any means put together, 

 they would manifest their specific properties, the one 

 dead and the other living. There is no break in the 

 reasoning. The truth is, that all Dr. Beale's reasonings. 



152 



