58 AS REGARDS PROTOPLASM, ETC. 



difference, rather than in the identity, it is, indeed, that the 

 wonder lies. Here are several thousand pieces of protoplasm ; 

 analysis can detect no difference in them. They are to us, let 

 us say, as they are to Mr Huxley, identical in power, in form, 

 and in substance ; and yet on all these several thousand little 

 bits of apparently indistinguishable matter an element of differ- 

 ence so pervading and so persistent has been impressed, that, 

 of them all, not one is interchangeable with another ! Each 

 seed feeds its own kind. The protoplasm of the gnat will no 

 more grow into the fly than it will grow into an elephant. 

 Protoplasm is protoplasm : yes, but man's protoplasm is man's 

 protoplasm, and the mushroom's the mushroom's. In short, it 

 is quite evident that the word modification, if it would conceal, 

 is powerless to withdraw, the difference ; which difference, 

 moreover, is one of kind and not of degree. 



This consideration of possible objections, then, is the last we 

 have to attend to ; and it only remains to draw the general 

 conclusion. All animal and vegetable organisms are alike in 

 'power, in form, and in substance, only if the protoplasm of 

 which they are composed is similarly alike ; and the functions 

 of all animal and vegetable organisms are but properties of the 

 molecular affections of their chemical constituents, only if 

 the functions of the protoplasm, of which they are composed, 

 are but properties of the molecular affections of its chemical 

 constituents. In disproof of the affirmative in both clauses, 

 there has been no object but to demonstrate, on the one hand, 

 the infinite non-identity of protoplasm, and, on the other, the 

 dependence of its functions upon other factors than its molecular 

 constituents. 



In short, the whole position of Mr Huxley, that all organisms 

 consist alike of the same life-matter, which life-matter is, for its 

 part, due only to chemistry, must be pronounced untenable 

 nor less untenable the materialism he would found on it. 



