( 138 ) 



CHAPTEE IX. 



PEOPEETT, COMMON SENSE, AND PEOTOPLASM. 

 (continued). 



The position, then, stands thus. Common sense gave 

 the inch of admitting some parts of the body to be less 

 living than others, and philosophy took the ell of 

 declaring the body to be almost all of it stone dead. 

 This is serious ; still if it were all, for a quiet Ufe, we 

 might put up with it. Unfortunately we know only 

 too well that it will not be all. Our bodies, which 

 seemed so living and now prove so dead, have served 

 us such a trick that we can have no confidence in any- 

 thing connected with them. As with skin and bones 

 to-day, so with protoplasm to-morrow. Protoplasm is 

 mainly oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, and carbon ; if we 

 do not keep a sharp look-out, we shall have it going 

 the way of the rest of the body, and being declared 

 dead in respect, at any rate, of these inorganic com- 

 ponents. Science has not, I believe, settled all the 

 components of protoplasm, but this is neither here 

 nor there ; she has settled what it is in great part, 

 and there is no trusting her jiot to settle the rest at 

 any moment, even if she has not already done so. As 



