Property and Common Sense 127 
preceding kinds of tool. They must all be linked on to 
protoplasm, which is the one original tool-maker, but which 
can only make the tools that are more remote from itself 
by the help of those that are nearer, that is to say, it can 
only work when it has suitable tools to work with, 
and when it is allowed to use them in its own way. 
There can be no direct communication between proto- 
plasm and a steam-engine ; there may be and often is 
direct communication between machines of even the fifth 
order and those of the first, as when an engine-man turns a 
cock, or repairs something with his own hands if he has 
nothing better to work with. But put a hammer, for ex- 
ample, to a piece of protoplasm, and the protoplasm will no 
more know what to do with it than we should be able to 
saw a piece of wood in two without asaw. Even protoplasm 
from the hand of a carpenter who has been handling 
hammers all his life would be hopelessly put off its stroke 
if not allowed to work in its usual way but put bare up 
against a hammer ; it would make a slimy mess and then 
dry up; still there can be no doubt (so at least those who 
uphold protoplasm as the one living substance would say) 
that the closer a machine can be got to protoplasm and the 
more permanent the connection, the more living it appears 
to be, or at any rate the more does it appear to be endowed 
with spontaneous and reasoning energy, so long, of course, 
as the closeness is of a kind which protoplasm understands 
and is familiar with. This, they say, is why we do not like 
using any implement or tool with gloves on, for these impose 
a barrier between the tool and its true connection with 
protoplasm by means of the nervous system. For the same 
reason we put gloves on when we box so as to bar the 
connection. 
That which we handle most unglovedly is our food, 
which we handle with our stomachs rather than with our 
hands. Our hands are so thickly encased with skin that 
protoplasm can hold but small conversation with what 
