46 



acid, water, and ammonia, as science has discovered, which are all 

 forms of inanimate matter, constitute the aliment of plants. 

 Plant life receives its original nutriment from these, and of them 

 or their resultants the parts of the plant from its first germ until it 

 attains maturity are composed Nitrogen, hydrogen, oxygen, and 

 carbon, are the recognised components of animal tissue. 



Vegetable substance constitutes the aliment of the lower animals, 

 and on these again, as well as on vegetable products, the higher 

 forms of animal life, culminating in man, are supported. Thus the 

 continuity of organised being may be traced in its mode of sub- 

 sistence, and not only so, but in its minute constituent particles. 

 It is at this point of the investigation that modern scientific re- 

 search exercises its most important influence. The revelations of 

 the higher powers of the microscope make known the astounding 

 fact, that when the remote animal or vegetable tissues are explored 

 to their still more remote component particles, these latter are re- 

 ducible to one mysterious substance, inconceivably minute to 

 unaided sense ; but thus scientifically examined proved to be, so 

 far as such knowledge has yet attained, identical in both cases. 



In the discovery of this marvellous molecular substance, thus 

 ascertained to be in a sense the original constituent of all organisms, 

 the science of Life has been placed on a basis of fact never before 

 attained. The chain of organised existence previously traced 

 downward to its inorganic constituents, has now been traced up- 

 wards to the limit where matter and spirit, in some sense, would 

 seem to meet. It is in the microsopic examination of this plastic 

 substance that the latest triumphs of biological science have been 

 attained. Within it have been discovered minute cells, proved to 

 be actually living particles, which, under the nutritive influence, as 

 it would seem, of the surrounding bioplasm, go to build up the 

 various portions of the organism which contains them. 



Dr. Beale, in his volume on Bioplasm, which has just issued 

 from the press, arrives at a similar conclusion. The following is 

 his statement — p. 6 : — 



" First stage of being of every living thins,. — Even man and the 



