ADDRESS. 3 



ments are set up in it ; waves traverse its surface, or it may be seen to 

 flow away in streams, either broad and attaining but a slight distance 

 from the main mass, or else stretching away far from their source, as 

 narrow liquid threads, which may continue simple, or may divide into 

 branches, each following its own independent course ; or the streams may 

 flow one into the other, as streamlets would flow into rivulets and rivulets 

 into rivers, and this not only where gravity would carry them, but in a 

 direction diametrically opposed to gravitation ; now we see it spreading 

 itself out on all sides into a thin liquid stratum, and again drawing itself 

 together within the narrow limits which had at first confined it, and 

 all this without any obvious impulse from without which would send the 

 ripples over its surface or set the streams flowing from its margin. 

 Though it is certain that all these phenomena are in response to some 

 stimulus exerted on it by the outer world, they are such as we never 

 meet with in a simply physical fluid — they are spontaneous movements 

 resulting from its proper irritability, from its essential constitution as 

 living matter. 



Examine it closer, bring to bear on it the highest powers of your 

 microscope — you will probably find disseminated through it countless 

 multitudes of exceedingly minute granules ; but you may also find it 

 absolutely homogeneous, and, whether containing granules or not, it is 

 certain that you will find nothing to which the term organisation can be 

 applied. You have before you a glairy, tenacious fluid, which, if not abso- 

 lutely homogeneous, is yet totally destitute of structure. 



And yet no one who contemplates this spontaneously moving matter 

 can deny that it is alive. Liquid as it is, it is a living liquid ; organless 

 and structureless as it is, it manifests the essential phenomena of life. 



The picture which I have thus endeavoured to trace for you in a few 

 leading outlines is that of protoplasm in its most generalised aspect. 

 Such generalisations, however, are in themselves unable to satisfy the 

 conditions demanded by an exact scientific inquiry, and I propose now, 

 before passing to the further consideration of the place and purport of 

 protoplasm in nature, to bring before you some definite examples of proto- 

 plasm, such as are actually met with in the organic world. 



A quantity of a peculiar slimy matter was dredged in the North 

 Atlantic by the naturalists of the exploring ship ' Porcupine ' from a depth 

 of from 5,000 to 25,000 feet. It is described as exhibiting, when examined 

 on the spot, spontaneous movements, and as being obviously endowed 

 with life. Specimens of this, preserved in spirits, were examined by Prof. 

 Huxley, and declared by him to consist of protoplasm, vast masses of 

 which must thus in a living state extend over wide areas of sea bottom. 

 To this wonderful slime Huxley gave the name of Bathybius Haeckelii. 



variation, from the solid form in which we find it in the dormant embryo of seeds, to 

 the thin watery state in which it occurs in the leaves of Valisneria. Its distin- 

 guishing properties are totally different from those of a purely physical liquid, and 

 are subject to an entirely different set of laws. 



b2 



