THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF LIFE 271 
ing period of the acceptance of the conclusion in its full 
significance. 
De Bary.—We find, then, in the middle years of the 
nineteenth century the idea launched that sarcode and pro- 
toplasm are identical, but it was not yet definitely established 
Fic. 86.—FERDINAND COHN, 1828-1898. 
that the sarcode of lower animals is the same as the living 
substance of the higher ones, and there was, therefore, lacking 
an essential factor to the conclusion that there is only one 
general form of living matter in all organisms. It took 
another ten years of investigation to reach this end. 
The most important contributions from the botanical side 
during this period were the splendid researches of De Bary 
(Fig. 87) on the myxomycetes, published in 1859. Here the 
resemblance between sarcode and protoplasm was brought out 
