140 Cells; or, Evolution. 



You have only to consult Professor Leidy's mono- 

 graph on the Fresh-Water Rhizopods, to see what 

 these little live cells can do and how they do it. 

 But, laying no stress on this minor point of com- 

 plete life being there, and regarding only the ground 

 for equivocation, we need not wonder at Professor 

 Huxley, in his essay on the Physical Basis of Life, 

 throwing out the phrase, " protoplasm dead or alive," 

 as if there were no important antithesis conveyed in 

 the term, " dead or alive." Alive, dead, and never 

 being either one or the other, have usually been 

 reckoned three different ideas; but not so, ap- 

 parently, in this chemistry which sinks all in one 

 phrase, dead and alive! 



154. So protoplasm seemed to command the 

 position between life and non-life. There was this 



little cell, consisting chiefly, if not en- 

 The Border- tirely, of protoplasm, exhibiting a posi- 

 L if e# tive vitality, and a most negative organic 



simplicity. And chemistry, feeling easily 

 sure of the simplicity, thought that now at last it had 

 the vitality also. A great future was dawning on 

 science; and the past history of the world was being 

 unrolled. It was by this stage that life must have 

 originally walked upon the globe. Who knows! 

 We were thrown back with Mr. Tyndall to " the 

 possible play of molecules in a cooling planet." 

 Here protoplasm betrayed that first playing of life. 

 And the term protoplasm was devised to express 

 the first plastic development thereof; for the Greek 



