OKEN’S THEORIES. 97 
Now, we need only change the expression “original slime” 
(Urschleim) into Protoplasm, or cell-substance, in order to 
arrive at one of the grandest results which we owe to 
microscopic investigations during the last ten years, more 
especially to those of Max Schultze. By these investigations 
it has been shown that in all living bodies, without ex- 
ception, there exists a certain quantity of mucilaginous albu- 
minous matter, in a semi-fluid condition; and that this 
nitrogen-holding carbon-compound is exclusively the ori- 
ginal seat and agent of all the phenomena of life, and of 
all production of organic forms. All other substances which 
appear in the organism, besides these, are either formed by 
this active matter of life, or have been introduced from with- 
out. The organic egg, the original cell out of which every 
animal and plant is first developed, consists essentially only 
of one round little lump of such albuminous matter. Even 
the yolk of an egg is nothing but albumen, mixed with 
granules of fat. Oken was therefore right when, more 
divining than knowing, he made the assertion—“ Every 
organic thing has arisen out of slime, and is nothing but 
slime in different forms. This primitive slime originated 
in the sea, from inorganic matter in the course of planetary- 
evolution.” 
Another equally grand idea of the same philosopher is 
closely connected with his theory of primitive slime, which 
coincides with the extremely important Protoplasm theory 
For Oken, as early as 1809, asserted that the primitive 
slime produced in the sea by spontaneous generation, at 
once assumed the form of microscopically small bladders, 
which he called “ Mile,” or “ Infusoria.” “Organic nature 
has for its basis an infinity of such vesicles.” These little 
VOL, I. H 
