Chapter IX 
Property, Common Sense, and Protoplasm (continued ) 
HE 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 life, 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 anything 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 components. 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 not to settle the 
rest at any moment, even if she has not already done so. 
As soon as this has been done we shall be told that nine- 
tenths of the protoplasm of which we are composed must go 
the way of our non-protoplasmic parts, and that the only 
really living part of us is the something with a new name 
that runs the protoplasm that runs the flesh and bones that 
run the organs 
Why stop here? Why not add “which run the tools. 
and properties which are as essential to our life and health 
as much that is actually incorporate with us?”’ The same 
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