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from the physical basis of life — is a precisely analogous proceeding to the 
formation of water from oxygen and hydrogen. He says : — 
“ Is the case in any way changed when carbonic acid, water, and ammonia 
disappear, and in their place, under the influence of pre-existing living proto- 
plasm, an equivalent weight of the matter of life makes its appearance ? ’’ 
Now here he is right so far, that no protoplasm is formed except under the 
influence of pre-existing protoplasm ; but he omits here to state that that 
protoplasm must already be organized into a living being before it can possess 
the power of re-organizing or forming protoplasm from the inorganic mate- 
rials of nature. Protoplasm, as such, cannot produce itself ; and therefore 
Professor Huxley is here entirely wrong. It is not produced simply under 
the influence of pre-existing protoplasm, but under the influence of that pro- 
toplasm which has become constituted an organized being. Between the two 
there is a very great difference. The argument of the author is against the 
existence of what we call vitality ; and he gives this illustration, as he 
supposes it to be, of his argument: — 
“ And why should ‘ vitality ’ hope for a better fate than the other ‘ itys ’ 
which have disappeared since Martinus Scriblerus accounted for the opera- 
tion of the meat-jack, by its inherent ‘ meat-roasting quality,’ and scorned the 
1 materialism ’ of those who explained the turning of the spit by a certain 
mechanism worked by the draught of the chimney ?” 
Now we shall soon see that that vitality is not so easily got rid of as 
Professor Huxley supposes. He says in one of the most important parts of 
his paper : — 
“ It may seem a small thing to admit that the dull vital actions of a 
fungus, or a foraminifer ” — [one of the very lowest orders of beings] — ■“ are 
the properties of their protoplasm, and are the direct results of the nature 
of the matter of which they are composed. But if, as I have endeavoured 
to prove to you, their protoplasm is essentially identical with, and most 
readily converted into, that of any animal, I can discover no logical halting- 
place between the admission that suck is the case and the further concession 
that all vital action may, with equal propriety, be said to be the result of the 
molecular forces of the protoplasm which displays it.” 
Now I think I can help him to discover a logical halting-place which he does 
not seem to have observed. He begins that passage by observing 
“ It may seem a small thing to admit that the dull vital actions of a 
fungus, or a foraminifer, are the properties of their protoplasm, and are the 
direct results of the nature of the matter of which they are composed.’* 
It may seem a very small thing to him, but it seems to me to be a very great 
thing, and to be just the root and gist of all the difference between 
materialism and immaterialism ; and in this way A fungus is a plant of a 
very lowly organization, but it must be a fungus before it has the power of 
producing the protoplasm of which future fungi may consist. It must become 
a fungus before it has the power of assimilating and producing fresh proto- 
