but we would like to have the professor explain how ordinary matter, even if quick, becomes protoplasm, and how the protoplasm becomes the origin and basis of the life of the plant. Every plant is an organism with its central life within. Virchow and Cl. Bernard by their late discoveries have proved that every organism proceeds from an organite, ovule, or central cell, which produces, directs, and controls or governs the whole organism, even in its abnormal developments. They have also proved that this ovule or central cell exists only as generated by a pre-existing organism, or parent, of the same kind. The later physiologists are agreed that there is no well authenticated instance of spontaneous generation. Now this organite must exist, live, before it can avail itself of the protoplasm formed of ordinary matter, which is exterior to it, not within it, and cannot be its life, for that moves from within outward, from the centre to the circumference. Concede, then, all the facts the professor alleges, they only go to prove that the organism already living sustains its life by assimilating fitting elements from ordinary matter. But they do not show at all that it derives its life from them; or that the so-called protoplasm is the origin, source, basis, or matter of organic life; or that it generates, produces, or gives rise to the organite or central cell; nor that it has anything to do with vitalizing it. Hence the professor fails to throw any light on the origin, matter, or basis of life itself.
It may or it may not be difficult in the lower organisms to draw the line between the plant and the animal, and we shall urge no objections to what the professor says on that point; we will only say here that the animal organism, like the vegetable, is produced, directed, and controlled by the central cell, and that this cell or ovule is generated by animal parents. There is no spontaneous generation, and no well authenticated instance of metagenesis. Like generates like, and even Darwin's doctrine of natural selection confirms rather than denies it. It is certain that the vegetable organism has never, as far as science goes, generated an animal organism. Arguments based on our ignorance prove nothing. The protoplasm can no more produce or vitalize the central animal than it can the central vegetable cell, and, indeed, still less; for the animal cannot, as the professor himself asserts, sustain its life by the protoplastic elements till they have been prepared by the vegetable organism. Whence, then, the animal germ, organite, or ovule? What vitalizes it and gives it the power of assimilating the protoplasm as its food, without which the organism dies and disappears?
Giving the professor the fullest credit for exact science in all his statements, he does not, as far as we can see, prove his protoplasm is the physical basis of life, or that there is for life any physical basis at all. He only proves that matter is so far plastic as to afford sustenance to a generated organic life, which every farmer who has ever manured a field of corn or grass, or reared a flock of sheep or a herd of cattle, knows, and always has known, as well as the illustrious professor.
We can find a clear statement of several of the conditions of life, both vegetable and animal, but no demonstration of the principle of life, in the professor's very elaborate discourse. Indeed, if we examine it closely, we shall find that he does not even pretend to demonstrate anything of the sort. He denies all means of science except sensible experience, and maintains with Hume that we have no sensible experience of causes or principles, all science, he asserts, is restricted to empirical facts with their law, which, in his system, is itself only a fact or a classification of facts. The conditions of life, as we observe them, are for him the essential principle of life in the only sense in which the word principle has, or can have, for him, an intelligible meaning. He proves, then, the physical basis of life, by denying that it has any intelligible basis at all. He proves, indeed, that the protoplasm, which he shows, or endeavors to show, is universal—one and the same, always and everywhere —is present in the already existing life of both the plant and the animal; but that, whatever it be, in the plant or animal, which gives it the power to take up the protoplasm and assimilate it to its own organism, which is properly the life or vital power, he does not explain, account for, or even recognize. With him, power is an empty word. He nowhere proves that life is produced, furnished, or generated by the protoplasm, or has a material origin. Hence, the protoplasm, by his own showing, is simply no protoplasm at all. He proves, if anything, that in inorganic matter there are elements which the living plant or animal assimilates, and into which, when dead, it is resolved. This is all he does, and in fact, all he professes to do.
The professor makes light of the very grave objection, that chemical analysis can throw no light on the principle or basis of life, because it is or can be made only on the dead subject. He of course concedes that chemical analysis is not made on the living subject; but this, he contends, amounts to nothing. We think it amounts to a great deal. The very thing sought, to wit, life, is wanting in the dead subject, and of course cannot by any possible analysis be detected in it. If all that constituted the living subject is present in the dead body, why is the body dead, or why has it ceased to perform its vital functions? The protoplasm, or what you so call, is as present in the corpse as in the living organism. If it is the basis of life, why is the organism no longer living? The fact is, that life, while it continues, resists chemical action and death, by a higher and subtler chemistry of its own, and it is only the dead body that falls under the action of the ordinary chemical laws. There is, then, no concluding the principle or basis of life from any possible dissection of the dead body.
The professor's answer to the objection is far from being satisfactory.
"Objectors of this class," he says, "do not seem to reflect … that we know nothing about the composition of any body as it is. The statement that a crystal of calcspar consists of carbonate of lime is quite true, if we only mean that, by appropriate processes, it may be resolved into carbonic acid and quicklime. If you pass the same carbonic acid over the very quicklime thus obtained, you will obtain carbonate of lime again; but it will not be calc-spar, nor anything like it. Can it therefore be said that chemical analysis teaches nothing about the chemical composition of calc-spar? Such a statement would be absurd; but it is hardly more so than the talk one occasionally hears about the uselessness of applying the results of chemical analysis to the living bodies which have yielded them. One fact, at any rate, is out of reach of such refinements and this is, that all the forms of protoplasm which have yet been examined contain the four elements, carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen, in very complex union, and that they behave similarly toward several reagents. To this complex combination, the nature of which has never been determined with exactness, the name of protein has been applied. And if we use this term with such caution as may properly arise out of comparative ignorance of the things for which it stands, it may be truly said that all protoplasm is proteinaceous; or, as the white, or albumen, of an egg is one of the commonest examples of a nearly pure proteine matter, we may say that all living matter is more or less albuminoid. Perhaps it would not yet be safe to say that all forms of protoplasm are affected by the direct action of electric shocks; and yet the number of cases in, which the contraction of protoplasm is shown to be effected by this agency increases every day. Nor can it be affirmed with perfect confidence that all forms of protoplasm are liable to undergo that peculiar coagulation at a temperature of 40 degrees—50 degrees centigrade, which has been called "heat-stiffening," though Kuhne's beautiful researches have proved this occurrence to take place in so many and such diverse living beings, that it is hardly rash to expect that the law holds good for all."
This long extract proves admirably how long, how learnedly, how scientifically, a great man can talk without saying anything. All that is here said amounts only to this: the conclusions obtained by the analysis of the dead body cannot be denied to be applicable to the living body, because we know nothing of the composition of any body organic or inorganic, as it is. Therefore all life has a physical basis! Take the whole extract, and all it tells you is, that we know nothing of the subject it professes to treat. "All the forms of protoplasm, which have yet been examined contain the four elements, carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen in very complex union." When chemically resolved into these four elements, is it protoplasm still? Can you by a chemical process reconvert them into protoplasm? No. Then what does the analysis show of the nature of your physical basis of life? "To this complex union, the nature of which has never yet been determined, the name of protein has been applied." Very important to know that. Yet this name protein names not something known, but something the nature of which is unknown. What then does it tell us? "If we use this term [protein] with such caution as may properly arise out of our comparative ignorance of the things for which it stands, it may truly be said that all protoplasm is proteinaceous." Be it so, what advance in knowledge, since we are ignorant of what protein is? It is wonderful what a magnificent structure our scientists are able to erect on ignorance as the foundation.
The professor, after having confessed his ignorance of what the alleged protoplasm really is, continues: