128 Luck, or Cunning ? 
they contain, unless it be held for a long time in the closed 
fist, and even so the converse is impeded as in a strange 
language ; the inside of our mouths is more naked, and our 
stomachs are more naked still ; it is here that protoplasm 
brings its fullest powers of suasion to bear on those whom 
it would proselytise and receive as it were into its own 
communion—whom it would convert and bring into a 
condition of mind in which they shall see things as it sees 
them itself, and, as we commonly say, “‘ agree with ”’ it, 
instead of standing out stiffly for their own opinion. We call 
this digesting our food ; more properly we should call it 
being digested by our food, which reads, marks, learns, and 
inwardly digests us, till it comes to understand us and 
encourage us by assuring us that we were perfectly right 
all the time, no matter what any one might have said, or 
say, to the contrary. Having thus recanted all its own past 
heresies, it sets to work to convert everything that comes 
near it and seems in the least likely to be converted. Eating 
is a mode of love; it is an effort after a closer union; so 
we say we love roast beef. A French lady told me once 
that she adored veal; and a nurse tells her child that she 
would like to eat it. Even he who caresses a dog or horse 
pro tanto both weds and eats it. Strange how close the 
analogy between love and hunger ; in each case the effort 
is after closer union and possession ; in each case the out- 
come is reproduction (for nutrition is the most complete of 
reproductions), and in each case there are residua. But 
to return. 
I have shown above that one consequence of the attempt 
so vigorously made a few years ago to establish protoplasm 
as the one living substance, is the making it clear that the 
non-protoplasmic parts of the body and the simpler extra- 
corporeal tools or organs must run on all fours in the matter 
of livingness and non-livingness. If the protoplasmic parts 
of the body are held living in virtue of their being used by 
something that really lives, then so, though in a less degree, 
