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this protoplasm : there is the protoplasm which the plant elaborates out of 
the mineral kingdom, and the protoplasm which the animal elaborates out of 
the protoplasm of the plant. The animal cannot elaborate protoplasm out of 
the mineral elements of the earth at all. That may be all very true so far as 
the analysis of the dissecting-knife and the microscope may go, but Professor 
Huxley makes a great jump from that, and tells his auditors that that pro- 
toplasm — and, by the way, it is very hard to find the meaning of Greek 
words of that kind, especially when a literal translation gives no idea of the 
thing which is meant — he tells his auditors that that protoplasm is nothing 
more than a combination of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen in some 
complicated form — he tells us that the chemists have not yet got the proper 
proportions of these elements, but that if you want to find a good equivalent 
for protoplasm you will find it in the white of egg, and you may be satisfied 
that all the elements of your body are to be found in a little smelling-salts 
dissolved in water ! (Laughter.) “ Here you are, all masses of changed 
protoplasm ! ” (Laughter.) But we want to know what that mysterious 
thing called life is, because even Professor Huxley cannot get out of the habit 
of talking of “living beings,” and “organic and inorganic matter.” What I 
complain of Professor Huxley is, that while he tells his auditors that living 
protoplasm differs in no degree from the dead carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, &c., 
of which it is formed, except in the nature of the chemical combinations of 
those elements and in their proportions, he also assures them that there is no 
such thing as vitality existing in nature ; and that which we call vitality — 
all the movements we see under the microscope — are nothing more than the 
action of those ordinary molecular forces which reside in the elements carbon, 
hydrogen, nitrogen, &c. The passage is a very strong one. Professor Huxley 
says : — 
“ When hydrogen and oxygen are mixed in a certain proportion and an 
electric spark is passed through them they disappear, and a quantity of 
water, equal in weight to the sum of their weights, appears in their place. 
There is not the slightest parity between the passive and active powers of the 
water and those of the oxygen and hydrogen which have given rise to it. 
At 32° Fahrenheit, and far below that temperature, oxygen and hydrogen 
are elastic gaseous bodies, whose particles tend to rush away from one another 
with great force. Water, at the same temperature, is a strong though brittle 
solid, whose particles tend to cohere into different geometrical shapes, and 
sometimes build up frosty imitations of the most complex forms of vegetable 
foliage. Nevertheless, we call these and many other strange phenomena 
the properties of the water, and we do not hesitate to believe that in some 
way or other they result from the properties of the component elements of 
the water. We do not assume that a something called ( aquosity ’ entered 
into and took possession of the oxide of hydrogen as soon as it was formed 
and then guided the aqueous particles to their places in the facets of the 
crystal, or amongst the leaflets of the hoar-frost. On the contrary, we live 
in the hope and in the faith that, by the advance of molecular physics, we 
shall by-and-by be able to see our way as clearly from the constituents of 
water to the properties of water, as we are now able to deduce the operations 
of a watch from the form of its parts, and the manner in which they are put 
