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PPicd, | 366 [March 1, 
countless globules the work is done. But each living creature is to re- 
produce its like, and is ever to reproduce only that; such is its mission, 
and it unerringly fulfills that mission. Hither the life does this, or He 
that created the life. It is no known property of matter to produce life. 
And the more the elementary materials are alike, the more each life must 
do; the more it must rule over the materials to produce the diversified 
results ; and the less the materials could have had mastery over them. 
We know well what the life appears to do, for she does all under our eyes 
and within us ; yet she dwells herself in impenetrable mystery. What 
she is, and how she can carry on her operations, no man may fully know. 
The keenest in scrutiny are not agreed as to the import of what they see, 
and Dr. Huxley has not explained whence the colorless corpuscles he 
calls protoplasm are derived ; does not say whether they are particles of 
food or chyle in transition to blood corpuscles, as that which is more 
vitalized, or whether they are derived from the latter; or whether red 
blood contributes any material for the construction of the body. The 
proportion of the colorless corpuscles to the red is less than three in one 
thousand (Dr. Carpenter’s Physiology, sec. 15). To make the few color- 
less corpuscles suftice for the consummation witnessed, seems cause inade- 
quate to the results; and is to make the vastly greater mass of red blood 
useless in the process, except it be merely as a tide to bear along the vital 
corpuscles to the places of destined use. He gives no reason why the 
white should be the exciusive material; or as he compares it, why the clay 
or brick, with which the house is to be built, is alone to be used, though 
that house is to contain also all other requisites to comfort: the plastering, 
doors, windows, floors, furniture and upholstery. It appears to be an as- 
sumption requiring proof, that the few white particles alone contribute to 
form and repair the different parts, the bone, muscle, tendon, tissue, ete., 
and contrary to different ends to be subserved, and to the universal econ- 
omy of nature that does nothing uselessly. These different parts demand 
particles of like nature to each respectively. We know, too, that the 
flesh may be changed in color and quality by the material fed, as the 
feeders of stock well know; and this seems proof that the elements that 
nourish and fatten are not protoplastically the same in substance or color. 
Dr. Carpenter speaks of the red corpuscles as ‘especially concerned in 
preparing pabulwm for the nervous and muscular tissues, the former of 
which is distinguished by the presence of phosphorized fats, and the 
latter by the remarkable predominance of the potash salts ; and this view 
derives further confirmation from the fact that a flesh diet seems to have 
a decided effect in the formation of red corpuscles.’ (Physiology, Sec. 
160.) And he devotes some paragraphs to show that the colorless cor- 
puscles are but another stage of the evolution of the red corpuscles. (Sec. 
163, etc.) Again he says, ‘‘That the corpuscles, however, both red and 
colorless, are living cells, and that, like other cells, they possess vital en- 
dowments peculiar to themselves, is not now questioned by any one.’’ 
(Ib. Sec. 196.) 
