AS REGARDS PROTOPLASM, ETC. 27 



rubric they work under as much now as ever. The heart of a 

 turtle, they say, is not a turtle; so neither is a protoplasm-shred 

 a protoplasm-cell. 



This, then, is the general consideration which I think it neces- 

 sary to premise ; and it seems, almost of itself, to negate Mr 

 Huxley's reasonings in advance, for it warrants us in denying 

 that physiological clay of which all living things are but bricks 

 baked, Mr Huxley intimates, and in establishing in its place 

 cells as before living cells that differ infinitely the one from 

 the other, and so differ from the very first moment of their 

 existence. This consideration shall not be allowed to pre- 

 termit, however, an examination of Mr Huxley's own proofs, 

 which will only the more and more avail to indicate the difference 

 suggested. 



These proofs, as has been said, would, by means of the single 

 fulcrum of protoplasm, establish first, the identity, and second, 

 the materiality of all life, whether vegetable or animal. These 

 are, shortly, the two propositions which we have already seen, 

 and to which, in their order, we now pass. 



All organisms then, whether animal or vegetable, have been 

 understood for some time back to originate in and consist of 

 cells ; but the progress of physiology has seemed now to sub- 

 stitute for cells a single matter of fife, protoplasm; and it is 

 here that Mr Huxley, rather too precipitately, perhaps, sees his 

 cue. Mr Huxley's very first word is the " physical basis or 

 matter of life ; " and he supposes (in his advanced knowledge), 

 " that to many the idea that there is such a thing may be novel." 

 This then, so far, is, though a misunderstanding, what is new in 

 Mr Huxley's contribution. He seems to have said to himself, 

 if formerly the whole world was thought kin in an "ideal" or 

 formal element, organisation, I shall now, by (supposed) aid of 

 the Germans, finally complete this identification in a " physical " 

 or material element, protoplasm. In short, what at this stage 

 we are asked to witness in the essay is, the identification of all 

 living beings whatever in the identity of protoplasm. As there 

 is a single matter, clay, which is the matter of all bricks, so there 

 is a single matter, protoplasm, which is the matter of all organ- 

 isms. " Protoplasm is the clay of the potter, which, bake it 

 and paint it as he will, remains clay, separated by artifice, and 

 not by nature, from the commonest brick or sun-dried clod." 

 Now here I cannot help stopping a moment to remark that Mr 

 Huxley puts emphatically his whole soul into this sentence, and 

 evidently believes it to be, if we may use the word, a clincher. 

 But, after all, does it say much ? or rather, does it say anything ? 

 To the question, " Of what are you made 1 " the answer, for a 

 long time now, and by the great mass of human beings who are 

 supposed civilised, has been " Dust." Dust, and the same dust, 



