i6 Life and Love. 



have food and must take the oxygen from the 

 air and must perform a number of operations 

 within its body. 



Imagine a creature composed of but a single cell ! 



This little being appears to us at first thought 

 very simple; yet when we consider what it 

 accomplishes we are filled with admiration and 

 wonder. 



In the first place it must have food or it cannot 

 live; how is it to obtain this food? 



The protoplasm of which it consists readily 

 solves the problem ; it recognizes its nutriment in 

 the water which flows about it, and exerts an attrac- 

 tive power upon each tiny particle of food, causing 

 it to become a part of the hungry cell. Having 

 drawn food into itself, the protoplasm proceeds 

 to extract from it just what it needs to satisfy its 

 hunger, and discards the waste parts; for it must 

 be understood that hunger does not depend upon 

 size, but upon the necessity of the living material 

 m the body to be renewed. A bit of protoplasm 

 so small that it would take a powerful microscope 

 to enable it to be seen at all, has the same need 

 for food that the largest animal has, and if deprived 

 of it would die of starvation. 



Besides appropriating its microscopic meal, our 

 tiny cell of protoplasm changes or "digests'' the 

 food into a material like itself, and builds this new 

 material into its substance to take the place of the 

 used up particles. 



