262 TRANSACTIONS OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
living structure. We know of no Protoplasm being formed 
except where there was already living Protoplasm to perform the 
operation of taking up either the minerals, in the case of plants, 
or the dead Protoplasm, in the case of animals. 
There is one other statement made to confirm the preceding 
argument. It is this, that there is a large class of living things 
which partake as much of the vegetal as of the animal, and serve 
as a transition, or medium, between the simplest vegetal and the 
lowest distinct form of animal life. It may possibly be regarded 
as the stem from which two divergent branches issued. Speaking 
of these Protista Haeckel says they display no distinct affinities 
nearer to one side than the other. 8 
There is another consideration which with some has had great 
weight in years gone by, and has with a few now ; but as it is 
repudiated by many who would be disposed to look favourably on 
the positions now advanced, it may be well to pause and examine 
the amount of force there is in this argument from the instability 
of living matter, the artificial production of organic compounds, 
and the peculiarities of the common basis of life. 
The first question of fact is the asserted instability of the 
elements of which organizable matter is composed. This question 
is most intimately connected with the strong assertion of such 
Biologists as Beale, that, whatever the elements entering into 
living matter may be, between its' living state and its non-living 
state there is an absolute and irreconcilable difference. 4 It should 
be observed that Beale's assertion is a fact of science. Whether 
the claim that this is to be explained by the existence in living 
matter of some undefinable thing beyond the bare collocation 
of atoms be admitted or not, it is obvious that, supposing it to 
exist, unstable elements as its vehicle would assuredly more sub- 
serve its purpose, or, if that be too teleological an expression, its 
manifestation, than would elements of less instability. So that, 
regarded as a matter of pure argument, and it is in that light 
alone that I wish to regard it, the instability of organizable matter 
would be no more evidence that there is nothing besides the 
elements than that they are agents of a very subtle wow-molecular 
reality. The argument proceeds on the assumption that if there 
3 History of Creation, ii. pp. 47-51. Cf. Bastian's Beginnings of Life, 
i. pp. 115-118. 
4 Bioplasm, p. 3. 
