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Commit it, then, to the flames, for it can contain nothing but sophistry and 
illusion.’ ” 
All he can find to comfort the minds of the changed protoplasm listening 
to him, is that all high and noble things are mere sophistry and delusion. 
He might have gone back to his simple illustration of the Protean forms of 
carbonate of lime, and he might have spoken of silica. ¥e have not to 
ascend very high up in the scale of animal creation before we find masses of 
protoplasm — nothing but the pure protoplasm he speaks of, — apparently 
homogeneous masses, displaying under the microscope no traces of structure, 
but only the marvellous movement he speaks of in the protoplasm of the 
nettle. But what do we find that living — not dead — protoplasm doing ? 
We find it having the power of seizing upon the particles of carbonate of 
lime with which it comes in contact, while another species of protoplasm 
seizes on particles of silica, and with them they build up marvellous struc- 
tures, not of protoplasm, but of pure carbonate of lime, or of pure silica. 
They elaborate those materials into some of the most beautiful forms you 
have ever seen under the microscope. You have seen those beautiful pieces 
of transparent silica, which they have worked upon, giving you, under the 
microscope, all the apparent markings of an engine-turned watch. And that 
one species of protoplasm has gone on from the time of its creation, for 
thousands and thousands of years, building up such masses of silica as those, 
and elaborating them into those beautiful forms — perfectly uniform in ex- 
ternal form — and entirely different from the Protean forms of silica or 
carbonate of lime crystals. The living protoplasm of one species alone has 
the power of taking particles of carbonate of lime and building them up into 
beauteous structures unchanged through thousands of generations. The 
molecular forces, on the other hand, uninfluenced by living protoplasm, build 
only Protean forms of crystals having no analogy whatever to the permanent 
structures produced by living agents. In spite of Darwin’s supposed law of 
progression, Professor Huxley is obliged to adroit that these very forms of 
carbonate of lime and silica, built up by masses of protoplasm, which are but 
the creatures of a day, perfectly ephemeral — he is obliged to admit that 
these forms of lime and silica have beenfleft as a token of the living powers 
of the protoplasm that formed them. All the immense masses of our chalky 
rocks are the works of these little creatures, whose descendants are forming 
now, like strata upon the bed of the Atlantic ocean. The deposits, dredged 
up recently from the depths of the Atlantic, are precisely the same as those 
found in the white cliffs of Albion, so that there is nothing here to lead 
us out of the slough. I will not enter upon any details concerning such 
marvellous structures as the ear, the eye, or the heart of man ; but I would 
ask, Am I to have no curiosity to go beyond the mere operation of molecular 
forces for such extraordinary formations as these ? The wisdom, the marvel- 
lous power, the marvellous science shown in these things — surely it must be 
a branch of pure philosophy to inquire into them. I know what was New- 
ton’s philosophy, for he has told us the eye and the ear could not have been 
