SPECULATIONS ON PROTOPLASM. 
43 
SPECULATIONS ON PROTOPLASM. 
An article in the “ American Naturalist ” for last 
September contains some suggestive remarks under the title 
of “ The Variability of Protoplasm.” We are accustomed to 
speak and reason as if protoplasm were all of one kind, 
although, of course, on consideration we should readily admit 
that this cannot be true. Differences are observed on 
comparing the protoplasms of distinct organisms, which go to 
show that they are chemically distinct. Some forms of it 
coagulate in the presence of water, others do not; there are 
differences in colour, transparency, and behaviour with 
chemical re-agents which all point to some difference in 
ultimate composition. For instance, it is well known that 
some species of bacteria take a colouring matter which has 
no effect upon others ; and, in fact, Professor Koch’s process 
for demonstrating Bacillus tuberculosis, and also Hansen’s for 
B. lepra, are founded upon this very property. There is, 
besides, that wonderful fact, the great arcanum of life, that two 
little cells apparently undistinguishable from one another may 
be germs proceeding from two distinct beings, and may 
develop into creatures totally unlike. We are led to the 
conclusion that the protoplasm of each species is a distinct 
organisation, and may be of a molecular composition more or 
less peculiar to itself. 
Moreover, some of the properties which were formerly 
thought to be distinctive of protoplasm, such as its motion 
and its capability of surrounding itself with a pellicle (the 
ectoplasm) of a different constitution from the interior mass, 
have been now met with in other substances of a truly 
inorganic nature. A small mass of cholesterine, for instance, 
if placed in a suitable fluid, surrounds itself with a membrane, 
which possesses that peculiar dialysing power that is often 
spoken of as peculiar to organic membranes, and permits 
liquids to pass through it by a process similar to osmosis. 
These pseudo-cells have heterogeneous contents and produce 
granular particles in their interior, and are, therefore, both in 
form and composition similar to the proximate elements 
(cells) of which organic tissues are composed. Certain 
speculative minds have thus been led to imagine that this 
similarity constitutes identity, and that thus no barrier exists 
to the conception of the formation of living beings from 
non-living matter. 
But this identity is not proved. A great flood of light has 
recently been thrown on the constitution of protoplasm, and 
