28o PROTOPLASM 



been expected that the cells would have assumed a definite 

 position with regard to the poles of the magnet. But, as has 

 been said, there was nothing to be seen of this. The magnet 

 also proved without effect upon the arrangement of the 

 strands of protoplasm and the streaming of the granules in 

 the hair cells of Tradescantia, etc., a fact which in like 

 manner confirms the absence of electric currents. 



For the sake of completeness it should be further 

 mentioned here that Fol (1879) set up a hypothesis as to 

 the connection of protoplasmic movements with electric 

 forces, which was not, however, raised above the rank of a 

 supposition, since it did not enter at all into details. Fol's 

 view and its significance may be made clear most simply by 

 means of the following quotation : " Si nous supposons une 

 pile ^lectrique dont chaque 61^ment soit de la grosseur d'un 

 de ces granules que le microscope devoile au sein du sarcode 

 sous formes de petits points grisatres, la quantite totale 

 d' electricity produite dans une pile de quelques millions de 

 ces ^Mments r^unis en tension pourra ^tre considerable 

 sans qu'il se d^gage aux extr^mitfe de la pile une quantity 

 d'electricite bien appreciable k I'aide de nos galvanom^tres. 

 !Neanmoins, suivant la mani^re dont cette force se r^partit h, 

 la surface de chaque granulation, un mouvement imprim^ ^ la 

 premiere particule d'une sdrie pourra se propager de I'une 

 k I'autre et produire un d^placement m^canique conside- 

 rable" (p. 269). 



{g) Ley dig's View of the so-called Hyaloplasm 



Even at an early date there was a hypothesis framed 

 .which sought for the actual living substance, and therefore 

 also the seat of movement, in the intervening matrix, the 

 so-called Enchylema. Leydig, the principal representative 

 of this view, had rather strange ideas concerning the matrix, 

 his hyaloplasma, which may be briefly indicated, since they 

 are of course the essential conditions for the possibility of 

 such a conception. He evidently had the greatest difficulty 

 in forming an opinion as to the nature of this hyaloplasm; 

 as can be proved by the following passage taken from his 



