THE PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS. 
261 
of the successive nuclei of the one simple substance. (3) The 
composition of the substance of living matter is the same in all 
organisms. Protoplasm differs from ordinary matter in the 
manner in which its atoms are aggregated. It is found in what 
we call "Life" to break up into carbonic acid, water, and ammonia. 
That is its chemical resolution. Plants take up carbonic acid, 
water, and ammonia. That is its chemical reconstruction. But 
carbonic acid = C and 0 ; water = H and 0 ; ammonia = H 
and N. \ so that the constituent elements are COH X. 9 But 
just as H and 0 mixed in certain proportions become the same 
quantity of water when an electric spark passes through them, so 
when carbonic acid, water, and ammonia are subjected to the 
influence of living matter in a plant, they become Protoplasm or 
living matter. And as, in the one case, water is only a certain 
aggregate of atoms, so in the other, Protoplasm is only a certain 
aggregate of atoms of ordinary matter. There is no "vital prin- 
ciple " or any mysterious thing otherwise named or unnamed. 1 
In view of such considerations, which are the accepted repre- 
sentations of the mechanical school, Haeckel says : " It is one of 
the greatest triumphs of recent Biology, that we are now able to 
trace the wonders of the phenomena of life to these substances, 
and that we can demonstrate the infinitely manifold and com- 
plicated physical and chemical properties of the albuminous bodies 
to be the real cause of organic or vital phenomena" 2 He also says 
that the difference between organisms and anorgana arises from 
the different manner in which the chemical and physical substances 
are united. 
It is, however, only fair to say that men less imaginative than 
Haeckel admit a few qualifications to the above representation 
of the characteristics of the basis of life ; namely, the experi- 
ments made on it to test its chemical composition are all made on 
dead Protoplasm. No means have been discovered of analysing 
it while living. Plants can manufacture new Protoplasm out of 
minerals, but animals can only procure it ready-made in animals 
or plants. There is no direct passage of the mineral into animal 
9 Cf. a different representation in Contemporary Review, September, 1876. 
p. 553. 
1 See Huxley's Lay Sermons, Lecture vii. But cf. Beale's Bioplasm, 
pp. 1-75. 
2 History of Creation, i. p. 331, cf. p. 339. 
