122 Luck, or Cunning ? 
_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 representa- 
tive utterance. Professor Allman said :— 
“‘ Protoplasm lies at the base of every vital phenomenon. 
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 protoplasm; wherever there is 
protoplasm there is life.’’* 
To say wherever there is life there is protoplasm, is to 
say that there can be no life without protoplasm, and this 
is saying that where there is no protoplasm there is no life. 
But large parts of the body are non-protoplasmic ; a bone 
is, indeed, permeated by protoplasm, but it is not proto- 
plasm ; it follows, therefore, that according to Professor 
Allman bone is not in any proper sense of words a living 
substance. From this it should follow, and doubtless does 
follow in Professor Allman’s mind, that large tracts of the 
human body, if not the greater part by weight (as bones, 
skin, muscular tissues, &c.), are no more alive than a coat 
or pair of boots in wear is alive, except in so far as the bones, 
&c., are more closely and nakedly permeated by protoplasm - 
than the coat or boots, and are thus brought into closer, 
directer, and more permanent communication with that 
which, if not life itself, still has more of the ear of life, and 
comes nearer to its royal person than anything else does. 
Indeed that this is Professor Allman’s opinion appears from 
the passage on page 26 of the report, in which he says that 
in “ protoplasm we find the only form of matter in which 
life can manifest itself.” 
According to this view the skin and other tissues are 
supposed to be made from dead protoplasm which living 
protoplasm turns to account as the British Museum 
* Report, 9, 26. 
