Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1870-06-01

mGnfSI DrlCk or sun 0rled clOd.
tow, great deal of this lecture of Pro
fesor Huxley, is undoubtedly very true
veiy Interesting. and, we may add, very
harmless. There is always a keen delight il
getting at qualities OF similarity and identity
psaFading all the departments of nature.
Every intelligent man enjoys reading the
proof that the flower Is made up of modified
Leaves or the skull of modified yertebTa
THe lime in our bones acknowledges kinshiI
with the lime in the rocks, and the skin Oi
Our hands with the leather OF the reins with
wbch we drive. Even the old catechism
Taught US, as Mr.. Stirling claims, that man
W q made of the dust of the earth Profes-
scr Huxley, however, evidently regards the
du, as containing more than is needlul for
The building up of man. lie cares very
little for most Of the forms of inorganic
matter. Indeed, as far as inorganic matter
is concerned, he manifests interest only in
caTbonlc acid, water, and ammonia, the
ceDbined elements out of which plants can
Haa auiacture protoplasm. This manufacture
\, kanly=hed, We have life-stutf, elementary
- fnaeter. True. it is absolutely requi-
az pave plant before you can get pro-
tofasm, and il is absolutely requisite TO have
plasm before you can get plant, but
thr little preliminary difficulty may be left
to ihe raisers of futile objections. The pro-
topasm once given, he has all he wants TO
construct his world out of. Here is the
Lively brick of scripture to be built up into
the living temple. Not to put it proianely,
it IS alive and kicking. Ii is endowed with
contactility, alimentation, reproduction.
ThO1ght and feeling are contractiOns; ali
meniation involves growth without end in 1t :;
reproduction peoples the living world of
plant and animal. What can be asked for
more
The first question that naturally arises is,
where does Professor Huxley find his Proto-
pasm, his elementary Ii e-stuff, the one com
mon physical basis of all forms of life? Does
the combination lie round anywhere " loose,
as tie elements carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen
may? No he finds it nowhere but in some
living organism. He can discover it in the
nette plant, in the egg, in the muscle OF
nerve Of living animals. But turn away
from it's organic connections, all the powers
he Gains iOr it disappear. Its life departs.
Alinentation, growth, reproduction, are
gone \ world of such matter would not
advance US a step toward the construction of
an animalcule. Why? Evidently because
is not active in this albuminOid
mass that was active in IL while it maintained
its o,ganic connections. The cause of the
life that was IN it is now out of it, whatever
that cause might be. The molecules remain,
the chemical afhnities remain, but one and
perhaps the chief of the factors of life is
gone, a factor that never displays it's energy
but IA ADd through an organism. Here,
then, opens an inseparable gulf between dead
protoplasn and living protoplasm. Till the
other factor is brought in, no protoplastic
life exists. In what just sense then, can
protoplasm as an entity itself be called a
;lay out Of which organisms are built
- The reason of the specific mode of exist
enee Of every part of living body lies in
the whole" This reason is at once a thought.
IN order, and eonverging of manifold en-
ergies ,upon an end. In Its totality 1t is the
lnteces ent and the cause of every manifesto
non Of life. And its efficiency and reality are
proves by the inevitable sequence of death
Thep Is action is withdrawn.
Aga.1, on what just grounds can Professor
luxlei laiD absolute iisptty for the vari-
'ss s... : - PlsA - keas in OggSnle an,
hinosS ,ba-sthis is only NC old dust Of the
atechih over again. There is nothing
tartliR4 here, unless a claim is made that
his id Aity is the only noticeable thing, and
hat diferenees between the kinds are of the
most triaing import. Bat precisely the re-
erse : the case. The differences are as
itaEfy dils anu III dAis dE hAAG uiuNHNnNN
,etween a rude, bestial idol and the Venus
If Milos both constructed out of the same
physical basis of marble. Trace these kinds
If proDplasm back to their most simple and
forms, and we are confronted
With the fact " that in every different tissue
here j. different initial term in the series. "
There's bone protoplasm, muscle protoplasm,
lrain VrotOplasm, and protO plasm of all the
tissues, 10 one of which but Ieproduces only
Is own lind and is interchangeable with
he rest. Break the maturing egg, and watch
he process of revolution within, as, from
eparaie centres, the cell-growth of nerve,
,one, muscle, skin, begins. Each activity is
tamIei with its special characteristics, does
is own special work, and nothing but its
special work. The process involves, indeed,
the presence and agency of albumInOid mat
er Bot does il not as absolutely involve
he presence and agency of other elements
han ne four whose union constitutes proto-
olasml The chlorine, sodium, potassium,
phos phorus, sulphur, and other elements,
With heir multiplied combinations, are they
not raj powers? Can their role be thrown
,ut, md the whole credited to protoplasm
w i'll J0n ever witness the production of skel-
,ton, brain, lungs, without them? Professor
Huxky seems almost crazed over prUtoplasm.
lie makes an idol of it alter the narrowest
sectalen fashion. He refuses to define what
he Hsans by 1t, or rather makes his use OF
the ern cover n hundred objects besides the
thing fself Certainly, ne is permitted to
say, i be chooses, that the structure OF a
man scomposed of blood, brain, bone, car
tilag, etc., and that all these are made out
Of pObplasm alone. But any child can an
swer I'M that they are made out of a great
man fhings besides, and that it is a poor
stateaent that does not include these. True,
Profssor Huxley alludes slightly TO these
and Ger things, as notifications. But the
yery1Rrrow ot the question is a question OF
mOd1eations- The notifications of various
kind, -and they are infinitely extended,-
are e controlling and shaping powers. So
niue n this the case, that the inherent life
hce-s1Ins for his abstract albuminoid life
- pure fiction. The life is the result
Of BUM total of all the forces at work.
fores hs active in the environment as in the
varii4 substances environed, forces acting
and reacting upon one another. so that the
Instnt the interchange is interrupted, the
life cases. Ii is mere fetch worship to shut
her Up in any one element and there wor-
,hit tbem. 1t is a blind ignoring of half or
Derhps of ninety-nine hundredths OF the
DroHen. 1t is tantamount to shouting over
.he amazing discovery that the Parthenon,
Sc. feters, and Milan Cathedral are identical
n-be fact that they are alike mainly built
f lmestone hurrah, the marble is the basis
md the all in all No matter about the
noofcations : Throw out, as OF small ac-
,oust, the army of muscular laborers, the
housand stone-cutters making the chips fly,
he cranes and derricks hoisting into place
pillar and frieze and architrave, and those
ustrous-eyed, divinely- moving men, Phidias
md Angelo, who seem the unity and the
.eason of the whole, The limestone is the
olii fact.
The strange perversion that runs through
his whole lecture is nowhere more fully in
TAGGED than in the manner in which Profes-
or Huxley speaks of dead prOtoplasm as
with living. By dead protoplasm
,e means, for example, the beef, mutton,
ish served up upon our tables. These we
at, and by '' singular inward laboratory"
We possess, convert into living protoplasm,