Picture - Cosmic Polymath

96 DESIGN IN NATURE
leaders of modern science, averred " that the chasm between the inorganic and organic is being filled up, and t a
organisms are highly differentiated portions of the matter forming the earth's crust and its gaseous envelope. n
like manner, Professor Huxley, also in the vanguard of science, stated " that protoplasm can originate only m that
into which it dies—the elements—the carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen of which it is found to consist.
Hydrogen, with oxygen, forms water ; carbon, with oxygen, carbonic acid ; and hydrogen, with nitrogen, ammoma.
Similarly water, carbonic acid, and ammonia form, in union, protoplasm. . . . Protoplasm, then, is but an aggregate
of physical materials, exhibiting in combination—only as was to be expected—new properties. .
. . All vital action
whatever, intellectual included, is but the result of the molecular forces of the protoplasm which displays it.^
Protoplasm, according to Huxley, is the formal basis of hfe. " It is the clay of the potter, which, bake and paint
it as he will, remains clay, separated by artifice, and not by nature, from the commonest brick or sun-dried clod.
Thus it becomes clear that all living powers are cognate, and that all living forms are fundamentally of one
character." Huxley regards protoplasm as identical in composition and uniformly diffused in plants and animals ;
that is, not contained in cells. In this he differs from the majority of German histologists, who still regard the
cell as the precursor and parent of protoplasm. With them " there is as yet no matter of life ; there are still cells
of life." Huxley claims for protoplasm a threefold unity—a unity of faculty, a unity of form, and a unity of
substance. Each of these positions has been disputed, and properly ; for how, say Huxley's opponents, can there
be unity of substance if the elements, carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, and nitrogen, which constitute the protoplasm, are
combined in varying quantity in different kinds of protoplasm ? If there is not unity of substance there cannot
be unity of form, and if there is neither unity of substance nor of form there cannot possibly be unity of function.
The unity of substance of protoplasm depends for its proof mainly upon ultimate chemical analysis. Ultimate
chemical analysis, however, teaches next to nothing in such cases. " Ozone is not antozone, nor is oxygen either,
though in chemical constitution all are ahke." Further, some protoplasm, in addition to carbon, oxygen, hydrogen,
and the Germans have shown that the cells which produce
and nitrogen, contains a certain proportion of sulphur ;
protoplasm contain in some cases glycogen, in others cholesterine, in others protagon, and in others myosin.
According to Professor Strieker protoplasm varies almost indefinitely in consistence, in shape, in structure, and in
function. In some cases it is fluid, in others semi-fluid, in others firm and resisting. Occasionally it is club-shaped,
bottle-shaped, spindle-shaped, branched, prismatic, polyhedral, &c. One kind produces fat, another pepsine,
another pigment. There is a protoplasm for each of the tissues—nerve, brain, bone, muscle, &c. There is, further,
a protoplasm for the several kinds of plants and animals, each producing its own kind.
Analogous in many respects to the protoplasm of Huxley is the bioplasm of Professor Lionel S. Beale. This,
as its name imphes, is also an elementary life-stuff. It is undifferentiated, and in this respect is identical with
Huxley's protoplasm. Beale and Huxley differ as to the mode of production of their elementary hfe-stuffs. Beale
affirms that they are the product of the vital forces per se ; Huxley of the physical ones. Beale attributes all
organisation to life, as apart from chemical, physical, and other forces. According to him, the bioplasm or
germinal matter is the same always and everywhere, and consists of small masses of a structureless, colourless,
and transparent ^'iscid substance. Beale claims for his bioplasm or life-matter similar properties to that claimed
by Huxley for his protoplasm. To both the same objections apply. Beale grounds the homogeneity and identity
of his bioplasm on microscopical research, and Huxley, as explained, upon ultimate chemical analysis. Neither,
however, is trustworthy. Experience teaches us that the microscope is hmited in its powers, and that chemical
analysis, instead of simply disintegrating and breaking up a body into its ultimate elements, not unfrequently
produces new combinations, and consequently new substances. On carefully considering this matter, I am still
of the opinion which I expressed in 187.3, that both Huxley and Beale are in error, and that protoplasm is
not the product of either the physical or the vital forces per se, but of both combined. Beale thus expresses
himself : " Force (that is, physical force) is actually opposed to construction ; and before anything is built up
the tendencies of force must be overcome by formative agency or power. . . . The
vital power transcends altogether
physical forces ; for it controls, guides, directs, arranges ; while the latter are controlled, are guided, are directed, &c." "
In proof of the foregoing, Beale states that a tree grows against gravitation. This is quite true ; but it is equally
true that in such cases the physical forces of capillarity, osmosis, chemical affinity, &c., as I endeavoured to show
in my " Lectures on the Physiology of the Circulation in Plants, in the Lower Animals, and in Man " {Edin. Med.
Journ., 1872), are largely employed. The vital forces may override or bridle certain physical forces while they
act in conjunction with others. In like manner nature may override or bridle one or more of the physical forces
by employing stronger physical ones ; but the physical forces subdued or inoperative for the time being are not
on this account destroyed. They are ready for use when the proper time arrives. Capillarity and osmosis (purely
' Huxley, as epitoriiised liy .T. Hutchison Stirling, LL.D., to whose able critique on " Protoplasm" the reader is referred,
^ " Life Theories and Religious Thought," 1871, pp. 6 and 78.