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plasm. So long as it existed merely as protoplasm, it was destitute of that 
power, and it could not obtain that power before it was under the influence 
of a germ derived from a pre-existing fungus of the same kind. It is only 
under the influence of that germ that, finding suitable materials for the 
formation of protoplasm, it can convert and constitute that protoplasm by a 
succession of changes into the entire organism which we call a fungus. Then 
it is that, as a natural consequence, the fungus has not only the power of re- 
producing similar germs to those from which it itself arose, but it has also the 
power of producing protoplasm, and of combining together those inorganic 
elements into protoplasm which is to become the pabulum, the food, the 
building materials of another organism of the same kind. What Professor 
Huxley seems to look upon as a very small thing is really a very great one. 
It is the whole gist of the question, and it is not to be passed over or 
acceded to in that way. I will grant the Professor this much, that if we 
admit that the vital actions of the fungus are the direct results of the nature 
of the matter of which it is composed, we admit the whole question. But 
it is the same throughout the range of the whole animal creation. No piece 
of protoplasm has the power, simply as such, of reproducing protoplasm ; but 
when any piece of protoplasm is under the influence of a pre-existing germ 
whether animal or vegetable, that protoplasm is formed into an organized 
being, and that organized being is capable of producing other germs which 
will reproduce their kind and the protoplasm which will serve as material 
from which their after-existence is built up. Now, in following this out, we 
are inevitably led back to the great first cause. We get a succession of 
protoplasms so formed, but in each case it has only been under the influence 
of a being resulting from a germ which has proceeded from another germ of 
the same kind, and that from a former germ ; and so on. W e are thus carried 
back, step by step, to the great first cause, who must have been the originator 
of all the individuals from which the germs were produced. That is an 
inevitable consequence, and therefore all the argument on the other side falls 
to the ground.— I can hardly pass over the contents of this lecture of 
Professor Huxley, without making one or two remarks, which I trust you will 
not consider irrelevant, on another passage. He says, towards the end of his 
lecture : — 
“ If a man asks me what the politics of the inhabitants of the moon are, and 
1 reply that I do not know ; that neither I nor any one else have any 
means of knowing ; and that, under these circumstances, I decline to trouble 
myself about the subject at all, I do not think that he has any right to 
call me a sceptic. On the contrary, in replying thus, I conceive that I am 
simply honest and truthful, and show a proper regard for the economy of 
time. So, H nine’s strong and subtle intellect takes up a great many problems 
about which we are naturally curious, and shows us that they are essentially 
questions of lunar politics, in their essence incapable of being answered, 
and, therefore, not worth the attention of men who have work to do in the 
world. And he thus ends one of his essays : — 1 If we take in hand any 
volume of divinity, or school metaphysics, for instance, let us ask : Does ft 
contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number ? No. Does 
it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter-of-fact and 
