//■^. 





oria 



^ason 



c 



as 



^ed all 



^ % 



t 



are n 



lie 



^Vhat 



P^^^ibletoi, 

 as aught el; 

 ^^^ti^-e (or resij 

 Secular polaniii, 



r the influence;: 



* 



I 



ire cannot 



that similar £!■ 

 :o account foi fc 



I 



f 



rhombic prffl^^ 

 Both the Crfsti: 

 the diri 



) 



s 



iteractions 

 js 0^ whic 



,ii 



I 







in 



^ucts ma/ 



r 



• 



an? ' 



select and^;i,^'- 



on 



The P^^P' 



TIf£ BEGINNINGS OF LIFE. 



431 



in saline solutions and in organic infusions respectively 

 products endowed with such totally different tenden- 

 cies — we may perhaps dimly see our way to comprehend^ 

 if we take into consideration the fundamental nature of 



F 



the difference existing between ordinary saline materials 



and the diverse 



big-atomed colloids of which living 



things are compounded. 



The interchangeability of animal and vegetal modes 

 of growth- — so strikingly illustrated in the last chapter— 



1 



> 



was long ago recognized by a few eminent naturalists 

 though systematists have never been wanting in energy 

 or will to denounce, what they considered, such revo- 

 time operA;! lutionary and anarchical doctrines. The additional 



evidence now about to be adduced wilL however^ 

 suffice to set the final stamp of truth upon the views of 

 those who regard Animals and Plants as mere modes 



ny complex cip of growth of a fundamentally similar living matter 



which, though at first it may assume more or less 

 neutral forms, is ever ready, now under one set of 

 influences to go along the higher animal modes of 

 development, and now under another to persist in the 

 simpler vegetal modes of nutrition. 



Several 



naturahsts, however, have also expressed 



their conviction that many of the lower forms of life — 



crystallizing is to crystallizable matter what the vital property is to 

 albuminoid matter (protoplasm). The crystalline form corresponds to 

 the organic form, and its internal structure to tissue structure. Crystalline 

 force being a property of matter, vital force is but a property of matter/ 

 C Fortnightly Review/ Feb. 1869.) 



' See Lindley's ' Veget, Kingdom/ 3rd ed. pp. 2 and 8. 



