The New Orleans crescent. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1866-1869, 1869-02-28
NAN, EIND AND MATTER.

searches and contemplating the conclusions
of physical science is to impress the mind
with the essential unity of organic existence.
1t would appear that all the elements, all the
forms, all the phenomena, all the organs, all
the functions and faculties of the living
world, are comprehended in the same struc-
tural scheme and rest upon the same funda-
mental basis. 1t would appear that in man,
the highest Of structures evolved in this
scheme, moods of sensation, moods of
thought, moods of love or of hate, moods
of hope or of fear, are resolvable into moods
of matter. 1t would appear that manifesto
tions of intelligence are identical with mani
festatio1s of vitality, and that this vitality,
manifested in hero, saint or philosopher,
differs not in kind, but only in degree aud
development, from what il is in beest bird,
plazt, fish, worm, polyp. There is something,
at first view, startling and oppressive in this
idea, into the presence of which scientific in
curry bringsus with remorseless certainty. 1t
is not fiattering to human pride to reflect that
our whole lives, physical, intellectual, moral,
are simply muliples of the vital unit which in
forms the lowest creature in animal or vegeta-
BILE existence that, in our highest endeavors
and aspirations, we are only notifications of
the same matter of life that sprouts in the
blade of grass, blooms in the violet. unfolds
in the mushroom, buzZes in the bee, futters
in the butterfly, quivers in the jelly-fsh and
wriggles in the animslcule. But whether
the reflection shall degrade our conception of
humanity, or expand and exalt our conception
- I-p
tirely upon our notions as to the limits of
scientific inquiry and the conditions of OBJ
jective knowledge. This is strikingly exhib-
tied in a recent lecture by Professor Huxley
on 1.-THE Physical Basis of Life" His scien-
tifc name for this is propoplasm, word that
literally signifies first form. Z" Beast AMI
fowl, reptile end fish, mollusk, worm and
polyp," says the professor, "are all COM
posed of structural units Of the same
character namely, masses of protoplasm
with q nucleus. There are sundry very low
animals, each of which, structurally, Is a
mere colorless, blood-coTpuscle, leading an
independent life. But, at the very bottom of
the animal scale, even this simplicity be-
comes simplfed, and all the phenomena Of
life are manifested by a particle of proto-
pasm without a nucleus. Nor are such
organisms Insignificant by reason of their
want of complexity. 1t is a fair question
whether the protoplasm of those simplest
forms of life, which people an immense ex-
tent Of the bottom of the sea, would MOI out
weigh that of all the higher living beings
which inhabit the land together. And in
ancient times, no less than at the present
day, such living beings as these have been
the greatest of rock builders. What has been
said of the animal world is no less true of
plants. Embedded in the protoplasm at the
broad, or attached, end of the nettle hair,
there lies spheroidal nucleus. Careful ex-
animation further proves that the whole sub
stance of the nettle is made up of repetition
of such masses of indicated protoplasm,
each contained In wooden case, which is
modified in form, sometimes into a woody
fiber, sometimes into pollen grain, or an
ovule. Traced back to its earliest state, the
nettle arises as the man does, in particle of
indicated protoplasm. And in the lowest
plants, as in the lowest animals, single mass
of such protoplasm may constitute the whole
plant, or the protoplasm may exist without
nucleus"
But protoplasm itself is not a simple SUBJ
stance, but is composed in its least complex
form of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, aud nitro
gen, themselves compounded in carbonic acid,
water, and ammonia. Neither plants nor an
imals can live upon the simple elements
of inorganic matter, nor can protoplasm be
developed into animal life until it has passed
through the laboratory of vegetable growth.
Therefore" says Professor Huxley, Sin seek
ing for the original of protoplasm, we must
eventually turn to the vegetable world" In
other words, ''the vegetable world builds up
all the protoplasm which animals distribute
and dispense" But vegetables themselves
derive lie from certain pre-existing COM
pounds which are not found in the common
matter of the universe, but which are yielded
by the dissolution of animal bodies; and hence
there would seem much reason for con-
GLIDING that animal death feeds vegetable life
as for concluding that vegetable death feeds
animal life. Be this as it may, in the grand
circle OF organic being, as far as science is able
to understand it, there can be no living with
out dying, and death is the immortal mother
of life. To illustrate the idea that every act
of living is an act of dying, the professor re-
fers to Balzac's wonderful story of the
'Peau de Chagrin," in which the hero
becomes possessed of magical
wild ass's skin which yields him the
means of gratifying all his wishes. But
its surface represents the extent of the pos
SCISSORS life; and for every satisfied desire the
skin shrinks in ratio to the intensity of fruit
ton until at length its last handbreath and
the last span of life disappear with the
qualification of the last wish.
Now, "the matter of life," the professor
goes on to say, "is a veritable 'pedu de cha
grin; and for every vital act it is somewhat
the smaller. All work implies waste, and the
work of life results, directly or indirectly, in
r