PROPERTY AND COMMON SENSE. 133 



more living than the end of a finger-nail, is so 

 dangerous to common sense ways of loolcing at life 

 and death ; I had better, therefore, be more explicit. 

 By this admission degrees of livingness are admitted 

 within the body ; this involves approaches to non- 

 livingness. On this the question arises, " Which are 

 the most living parts ? " The answer to this was 

 given a few years ago with a flourish of trumpets, and 

 our biologists shouted with one voice, " Great is proto- 

 plasm. There is no life but protoplasm, and Huxley 

 is its prophet." Eead Huxley's "Physical Basis of 

 Mind." Eead Professor Mivart's article, " What is a 

 Living Being ? " in the Contemporary Review, July 

 1 879. Eead Dr. Andrew Wilson's article in the Gentle- 

 man's Magazine, October 1879. Eemember Professor 

 Allman's address to the British Association, 1879; 

 ask, again, any medical man what is the most approved 

 scientific attitude as regards the protoplasmic and non- 

 protoplasmic parts of the body, and he will say that 

 the thinly veiled conclusion arrived at by all of them 

 is, that the protoplasmic parts are alone truly living, 

 and that the non-protoplasmic are non-living. 



It may suffice if I confine myself to Professor 

 Allman's address to the British Association in 1879, as 

 a representative utterance. Professor AUman said : — 



" Protoplasm lies at the base of every vital pheno- 

 menon. It is, as Huxley has well expressed it, ' the 

 physical basis of life ;' wherever there is life from its 

 lowest to its highest manifestation there is proto- 

 plasm ; wherever there is protoplasm there is life." * 

 • Report, 9. 26. 



