42 AS REGARDS PROTOPLASM, ETC. 



of life ;" but he ought to have added that these phenomena are 

 themselves added to the phenomena for which all that relates to 

 chemistry stands, and are there, consequently, only by reason 

 of some other determinant. New consequents necessarily 

 demand new antecedents. " We think fit to call different kinds 

 of matter carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, and nitrogen, and to 

 speak of the various powers and activities of these substances 

 as the properties of the matter of which they are composed." 

 That, doubtless, is true, we say; but such statements do not 

 exhaust the facts. We call water hydrogen and oxygen, and 

 attribute ^.properties to the properties of them. In a chemical 

 point of view, we ought to do the same thing for ice and steam ; 

 yet, maugre the chemical identity of the three, water is not ice, 

 nor is either steam. Do we, then, in these cases, make nothing 

 of the difference, and in its despite enjoy the satisfaction of 

 viewing the three as one ? Not so ; we ask a reason for the 

 difference; we demand an antecedent that shall render the 

 consequent intelligible. The chemistry of oxygen and hydro- 

 gen is not enough in explanation of the threefold form ; and by 

 the very necessity of the facts w r e are driven to the addition of 

 heat. It is precisely so with protoplasm in its twofold form. 

 The chemistry remaining the same in each (if it really does 

 eo), we are compelled to seek elsewhere a reason for the 

 difference of living from dead protoplasm. As the differences 

 of ice and steam from water lay not in the hydrogen and 

 oxygen, but in the heat, so the difference of living from dead 

 protoplasm lies not in the carbon, the hydrogen, the oxygen, 

 and the nitrogen, but in the vital organisation. In all cases, 

 for the new quality, plainly, we must have a new explanation. 

 The qualities of a steam-engine are not the results of its simple 

 chemistry. We do apply to protoplasm the same conceptions, 

 then, that are legitimate elsewhere, and in allocating properties 

 and explaining phenomena we simply insist on Mr Huxley's 

 own distinction of " living or dead." That, in fact, is to us the 

 distinction of distinctions, and we admit no vital action 

 whatever, not even the dullest, to be the result of the molecular 

 action of the protoplasm that displays it. The very protoplasm 

 of the nettle-sting, with which Mr Huxley begins, is already 

 vitally organised, and in that organisation as much superior to 

 its own molecules as the steam-engine, in its mechanism, to its 

 own wood and iron. It were indeed as rational to say that 

 there is no principle concerned in a steam-engine or a watch 

 but that of its molecular forces, as to make this assertion of 

 organised matter. Still there are degrees in organisation, and 

 the highest forms of life are widely different from the lowest. 

 Degrees similar we see even in the inorganic world. The 

 persistent flow of a river is, to the mighty reason of the solar 



