AS REGARDS PROTOPLASM, ETC. 55 



tion, etc.) belong to another sphere, higher than, and very 

 different from, those of mechanical juxtaposition or chemical 

 neutralisation ; that life, then, is no mere product of matter as 

 matter ; that if no life can be pointed to independent of matter, 

 neither is there any life-stuff independent of life ; and that life, 

 consequently, adds a new and higher force to chemistry, as 

 chemistry a new and higher force to mechanics, etc. As for 

 thought, the endeavour was to show that it was as independent 

 on the one side as matter on the other, that it controlled, used, 

 summed, and was the reason of matter. Thought, then, is not 

 to be reached by any bridge from matter, that is a hybrid of 

 both, and explains the connection. The relation of matter to 

 mind is not to be explained as a transition, but as a contrecoup. 

 In this relation, however, it is not the material, but the mental 

 side, which the whole universe declares to be the dominant 

 one. 



As regards any objections to the arguments which we have 

 brought against the identity of protoplasm, again, these will lie 

 in the phrase, probably, " difference not of kind, but degree," or 

 in the word " modification." The " phrase " may be now passed, 

 for generic or specific difference must be allowed in protoplasm, 

 if not for the overwhelming reason that an infinitude of various 

 kinds exist in it, each of which is self-productive and uninter- 

 changeable with the rest, then for Mr Huxley's own reason, that 

 plants assimilate inorganic matter and animals only organic. 

 As for the objection " modification," again, the same considera- 

 tion of generic difference must prove fatal to it. This were 

 otherwise, indeed, could but the molecularists and Mr Darwin 

 succeed in destroying generic difference ; but in this, as we 

 have seen, they have failed. And this will be always so : who 

 dogs identify, difference dogs him. It is quite a justifiable 

 endeavour, for example, to point out the identity that obtains 

 between veins and arteries on the one hand, as between these 

 arid capillaries on the other ; but all the time the difference is 

 behind us ; and when we turn to look, we see, for circulation, 

 the valves of the veins and the elastic coats of the arteries as 

 opposed to one another, and, for irrigation, the permeable walls 

 of the capillaries as opposed to both. 



Generic differences exist then, and we cannot allow the word 

 "modification" to efface them in the interest of the identity 

 claimed for protoplasm. Brain-protoplasm is not bone-proto- 

 plasm, nor the protoplasm of the fungus the protoplasm of man. 

 Similarly, it is very questionable how far the word " modifica- 

 tion " will warrant us in regarding with Mr Huxley the " ducts, 

 fibres, pollen, and ovules " of the nettle as identical with the 

 protoplasm of its sting. Things that originate alike may surely 

 eventuate in others which, chemically and vitally, far from being; 



