198 



FACTS AND FANCIES 



no complexity, prove, on examination, to be in- 

 tricate and complex almost beyond conception. 

 In nothing, perhaps, is this better seen than in 

 that much-abused protoplasm which has been 

 made to do duty for God in the origination of 

 life, but which is itself a most laboriously man- 

 ufactured material. Albumen, or white of ^^^ 

 — which is otherwise named " protoplasm " — is 

 a very complicated substance both chemically 

 and in its molecular arrangements, and when 

 endowed with life it presents properties alto- 

 gether inscrutable. It is easy to say that the 

 protoplasm of an ^^^ or of some humble an- 

 imalcule or microscopic embryo is little more 

 than a mass of structureless jelly ; yet, in the 

 case of the embryo, a microscopic dot of this 

 apparently structureless jelly must contain all 

 the parts of the future animal, however com- 

 plex ; but how we may never know, and cer- 

 tainly cannot yet comprehend. 



There are minute animalcules belonging to 

 the group of flagellate Infusoria, some of which, 

 under ordinary microscopic powers, appear 

 merely as moving specks, and show their act- 

 ual structures only under powers of two thou- 

 sand diameters, or more ; yet these animals can 

 be seen to have an outer skin and an inner 



