A man 5 feet 8 inches high, weighing 154 pounds.

lbs.oz.grs.
Oxygen11100
Hydrogen1400
Carbon2100
Nitrogen3100
Inorganic elements in the ash:
Phosphorus1288
Calcium200
Sulphur00219
Chlorine0247
1 ounce = 437 grains.
Sodium02116
Iron00100
Potassium00290
Magnesium0012
Silica002
———
Total15400

The quantity of the substances found in a human body weighing 154 pounds:

lbs.oz.grs.
Water11100
Gelatin1500
Albumen430
Fibrine440
Fat1200
Ashes790
———
Total15400

(From the "Chemists' Manual.")

Professor Owen[12] says: "There are organisms (vibrieo, rotifer, macrobiotus, etc.) which we can devitalize and revitalize—devive and revive—many times. As the dried animalcule manifest no phenomena suggesting any idea contributing to form the complex one of 'life' in my mind, I regard it to be as completely lifeless as is the drowned man, whose breath and heat have gone, and whose blood has ceased to circulate. * * * The change of work consequent on drying or drowning forthwith begins to alter relations or compositions, and in time to a degree adverse to resumption of the vital form of force, a longer period being needed for this effect in the rotifer, a shorter one in the man, still shorter it may be in the amœba."

"There is," says Dumas,[13] "an eternal round in which death is quickened and life appears, but in which matter merely changes its place and form."

Let us now compare the inorganic world with the organic—the inanimate with the animate—and see if there does exist an inseparable boundary between them. The fundamental properties of every natural body are matter, form, and force. One important point to be noticed is, that the elements which compose all animate bodies are the very elements that help to build up the inanimate bodies. No new elements appear in the vegetable or animal world which are not to be found in the inorganic world. The difference between animate and inanimate bodies, therefore, is certainly not in the elements which form them, but in the molecular combination of them; and it is to be hoped that molecular physics will, at some not far distant time, enlighten us as to the peculiar state of aggregation in which the molecules exist in living matter. As to the form, it is impossible to find any essential difference in the external form and inner structure between inorganic and organic bodies—for the simple monad, which is as much a living organism as the most complex being, is nothing but a homogeneous, structureless mass of protoplasm. But just as the inorganic substance, according to well-defined laws, elaborates its structure into a crystal of great beauty, so does the protoplasm elaborate itself into the most beautiful of all structures—the cell unit. Just as gold and copper crystallizes in a geometrical form, a cube—bismuth and antimony in a hexagonal, iodine and sulphur in a rhombic form—so we find among radiolaria, and among other protista and lower forms, that they "may be traced to a mathematical, fundamental form, and whose form in its whole, as well as in its parts, is bounded by definite geometrically determinable planes and angles." Now, as to the forces of the two different groups of bodies. Surely the constructive force of a crystal is due to the chemical composition, and to its material constitution. As the shape of the crystal and its size are influenced by surrounding circumstances, there is, therefore, an external constructive force at work. The only difference between the growth of an organism and that of a crystal is, that in the former case, in consequence of its semi-fluid state of aggregation, the newly added particles penetrate into the interior of the organism (inter-susception), whereas inorganic substances receive homogeneous matter from without, only by opposition or an addition of new particles to the surface. "If we, then, designate the growth and the formation of organisms as a process of life, we may with equal reason apply the same term with the developing crystal." It is for these and other reasons, demonstrating as they do the "unity of organic and inorganic nature," the essential agreement of inorganic and organic bodies in matter, form, and force, which led Tyndall[14] to say: "Abandoning all disguise, the confession that I feel bound to make before you is, that I prolong the vision backward across the boundary of experimental evidence, and discern in that matter which we in our ignorance, and notwithstanding our professed reverence for its Creator, have hitherto covered with opprobrium, the promise and potency of every form and quality of life."

Returning now to our protoplasm, let us ask the question: Where did it come from? or, How did it come into existence? Though chemical synthesis has built up a number of organic substances which have been deemed the product of vitality, yet, up to the present day, the fact stands out before us that no one has ever built up one particle of living matter, however minute, from lifeless elements.

The protoplasm of to-day is simply a continuation of the protoplasm of other ages, handed down to us through periods of undefinable and indeterminable time.