74 AS REGARDS PROTOPLASM, ETC'. 



NOTE. 



It is argued by Mr Huxley in his essay on "Yeast," as against 

 Kant, who conceived generally, " the special peculiarity of the 

 living body to be that the parts exist for the sake of the 

 whole, and the whole for the sake of the parts," that by the 

 resolution of the living body " into an aggregation of quasi- 

 independent cells," " this conception has ceased to be tenable." 

 But it is not so certain that this is so, whether as regards the 

 cells, or as regards the body. A cell is still a whole of parts, and 

 both parts and whole are in the relation assigned by Kant. 

 Then, when the actual inter-connections of the body and the 

 cells are studied, the result is not w^hat Mr Huxley would seem 

 to infer as to the primacy, so to speak, and independence of 

 the cells. They, rather, are seen to be but subservient ministers, 

 while the body itself is the prime and dominating agent. In 

 illustration here, let me quote from my review of Dr Beale's 

 recent work on Protoplasm, in the Edinburgh Courant for 

 February 25, 1870: 



" All the tissues and organs of which we consist are built up, 

 according to Dr Beale, by millions of minute living particles. 

 Each of these is a unit of germinal matter, surrounded or faced 

 by formed material. This formed material goes to constitute 

 the tissue or organ skin, muscle, bone, liver, lung, etc. in 

 which the living particle of germinal matter finds itself . . . 

 Materials from the blood constantly pass into the centres of the 

 particles of the germinal matter. These particles are thus fed, 

 for they convert the materials they receive into their own 

 substance, at the same time that, at their own surfaces, they 

 themselves are constantly passing into the non-living state of 

 formed material. This, then, is the process. Germinal matter 

 (a cell) converts pabulum (from the blood) into itself, multiplies, 

 and lastly dies (in an external ring or external surface) into 

 formed material. The three matters italicised constitute thus 

 Dr Beale's physiological elements, and of these the germinal 

 matter alone lives. . . . The least erudite reader may be 

 able to form to himself, perhaps now, a perfectly clear idea of 

 the nature, place, and business of these working units (the cells 

 or germinal particles) in the general economy. It is not 

 difficult for any one to picture a skeleton, or to conceive it filled 

 up with muscles, and covered with skin. As little difficult 

 will it be, imaginatively, to place lungs, heart, stomach, and 

 viscera, within the trunk, and to connect every part of these, 

 as well as of bone, muscle, and skin, with the marrowy brain 

 within the skull, by means of the threads of the nerves. These 



