Half Hours With Modern Scientists: Lectures and Essays — Themes and Context

in general. With yet greater assurance of carrying conviction with us, we may point in particular to the actual opinions of its present professors. We have seen already, in the consideration premised, that Mr. Huxley’s hypothesis of a protoplasm _matter_ is unsupported, even by the most innovating Germans, who as yet will not advance, the most advanced of them, beyond a protoplasm-cell; and that his whole argument is thus sapped in advance. But what threatens more absolute extinction of this argument still, _all_ the German physiologists do _not_ accept even the protoplasm-cell. Rindfleisch, for example, in his recently-published ‘Lehrbuch der pathologischen Gewebelehre’ speaks of the cell very much as we understand Virchow to have spoken of it. To him there is in the cell not only protoplasm but nucleus, and perhaps membrane as well. To him, too, the cell propagates itself quite as we have been hitherto fancying it to do, by division of the nucleus, increase of the protoplasm, and ultimate partition of the cell itself. Yet he knows withal of the opinions of others, and accepts them in a manner. He mentions Kühne’s account of the membrane as at first but a mere physical limit of two fluids—a mere peripheral film or curdling; still he assumes a formal and decided membrane at last. Even Leydig and Schultze, who shall be the express eliminators of the membrane—the one by initiation and the other by consummation—confess that, as regards the cells of certain tissues, they have never been able to detect in them the absence of a membrane.

As regards the nucleus again, the case is very much stronger. When we have admitted with Brücke that certain cryptogam cells, with Haeckel that certain protists, with Cienkowsky that two monads, and with Schultze that one amoeba, are without nucleus—when we have admitted that division of the cell _may_ take place without implicating that of the nucleus—that the movements of the nucleus _may_ be passive and due to those of the protoplasm—that Baer and Stricker demonstrate the disappearance of the original nucleus in the impregnated egg,—when we have admitted this, we have admitted also all that can be said in degradation of the nucleus. Even those who say all this still attribute to the nucleus an important and unknown _rôle_, and describe the formation in the impregnated egg of a new nucleus; while there are others again who resist every attempt to degrade it. Böttcher asserts movement for the nucleus, even when wholly removed from the cell; Neumann points to such movement in dead or dying cells; and there is other testimony to a like effect, as well as to peculiarities of the nucleus otherwise that indicate spontaneity. In this reference we may allude to the weighty opinion of the late Professor Goodsir, who anticipated in so remarkable a manner certain of the determinations of Virchow. Goodsir, in that anticipation, wonderfully rich and ingenious as he is everywhere, is perhaps nowhere more interesting and successful than in what concerns the nucleus. Of the whole cell, the nucleus is to him, as it was to Schleiden, Schwann, and others, the most important element. And this is the view to which I, who have little business to speak, wish success. This universe is not an accidental cavity, in which an accidental dust has been accidentally swept into heaps for the accidental evolution of the majestic spectacle of organic and inorganic life. That majestic spectacle is a spectacle as plainly for the eye of reason as any diagram of the mathematician. That majestic spectacle could have been constructed, was constructed, only in reason, for reason, and by reason. From beyond Orion and the Pleiades, across the green hem of earth, up to the imperial personality of man, all, the furthest, the deadest, the dustiest, is for fusion in the invisible point of the single Ego—_which alone glorifies it_. _For_ the subject, and on the model of the subject, all is made. Therefore it is that—though, precisely as there are acephalous monsters by way of exception and deformity, there may be also at the very extremity of animated existence cells without a nucleus—I cannot help believing that this nucleus itself, as analogue of the subject will yet be proved the most important and indispensable of all the normal cell-elements. Even the phenomena of the impregnated egg seem to me to support this view. In the egg, on impregnation, it seems to me natural (I say it with a smile) that the old sun that ruled it should go down, and that a new sun, stronger in the combination of the new and the old, should ascend into its place!

Be these things as they may, we have now overwhelming evidence before us for concluding, with reference to Mr. Huxley’s first proposition, that—in view of the nature of microscopic science—in view of the state of belief that obtains at present as regards nucleus, membrane, and entire cell—even in view of the supporters of protoplasm itself—Mr. Huxley is not authorized to speak of a physical matter of life; which, for the rest, if granted, would, for innumerable and, as it appears to me, irrefragable reasons, be obliged to acknowledge for itself, not identity, but an infinite diversity in power, in form and in substance.

So much for the first proposition in Mr. Huxley’s essay, or that which concerns protoplasm, as a supposed matter of life, identical itself, and involving the identity of all the various organs and organisms which it is assumed to compose. What now of the second proposition, or that which concerns the materiality at once of protoplasm, and of all that is conceived to derive from protoplasm? In other words, though, so to speak, for organic bricks anything like an organic clay still awaits the proof, I ask, if the bricks are not the same because the clay is not the same, what if the materiality of the former is equally unsupported by the materiality of the latter? Or what if the functions of protoplasm are not properties of its mere molecular constitution?

For this is Mr. Huxley’s second proposition, namely, That all vital and intellectual functions are but the properties of the molecular disposition and changes of the material basis (protoplasm) of which the various animals and vegetables consist. With the conclusions now before us, it is evident that to enter at all on this part of Mr. Huxley’s argumentation is, so far as we are concerned, only a matter of grace. In order that it should have any weight, we must grant the fact, at once of the existence of a matter of life, and of all organs and organisms being but aggregates of it. This, obviously, we cannot now do. By way of hypothesis, however, we may assume it. Let it be granted, then, that _pro hac vice_ there _is_ a physical basis of life with all the consequences named; and now let us see how Mr. Huxley proceeds to establish its materiality.

The whole former part of Mr. Huxley’s essay consists (as said) of fifty paragraphs, and the argument immediately concerned is confined to the latter ten of them. This argument is the simple chemical analogy that, under stimulus of an electric spark, hydrogen and oxygen uniting into an equivalent weight of water, and, under stimulus of preëxisting protoplasm, carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen uniting into an equivalent weight of protoplasm, there is the same warrant for attributing the properties of the consequent to the properties of the antecedents in the latter case as in the former. The properties of protoplasm are, in origin and character, precisely on the same level as the properties of water. The cases are perfectly parallel. It is as absurd to attribute a new entity vitality to protoplasm, as a new entity aquosity to water. Or, if it is by its mere chemical and physical structure that water exhibits certain properties called aqueous, it is also by its mere chemical and physical structure that protoplasm exhibits certain properties called vital. All that is necessary in either case is, “under certain conditions,” to bring the chemical constituents together. If water is a molecular complication, protoplasm is equally a molecular complication, and for the description of the one or the other there is no change of language required. A new substance with new qualities results in precisely the same way here, as a new substance with new qualities there; and the derivative qualities are not more different from the primitive qualities in the one instance, than the derivative qualities are different from the primitive qualities in the other. Lastly, the _modus operandi_ of preëxistent protoplasm is not more unintelligible than that of the electric spark. The conclusion is irresistible, then, that all protoplasm being reciprocally convertible, and consequently identical, the properties it displays, vitality and intellect included, are as much the result of molecular constitution as those of water itself.

It is evident, then, that the fulcrum on which Mr. Huxley’s second proposition rests, is a single inference from a chemical analogy. Analogy, however, being never identity, is apt to betray. The difference it hides may be essential, that is, while the likeness it shows may be inessential—so far as the conclusion is concerned. That this mischance has overtaken Mr. Huxley here, it will, I fancy, not be difficult to demonstrate.

The analogy to which Mr. Huxley trusts has two references: one, to chemical composition, and one to a certain stimulus that determines it. As regards chemical composition, we are asked, by virtue of the analogy obtaining, to identify, as equally simple instances of it, protoplasm here and water there; and, as regards the stimulus in question, we are asked to admit the action of the electric spark in the one case to be quite analogous to the action of preëxisting protoplasm in the other. In both references I shall endeavor to point out that the analogy fails; or, as we may say it also, that, even to Mr. Huxley, it can only seem to succeed by discounting the elements of difference that still subsist.

To begin with chemical combination, it is not unjust to demand that the analogy which must be admitted to exist in that, and a general physical respect, should not be strained beyond its legitimate limits. Protoplasm cannot be denied to be a chemical substance; protoplasm cannot be denied to be a physical substance. As a compound of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen, it comports itself chemically—at least in ultimate instance—in a manner not essentially different from that in which water, as a compound of hydrogen and oxygen, comports itself chemically. In mere physical aspect, again, it may count quality for quality with water in the same aspect. In short, so far as it is on chemical and physical structure that the possession of distinctive properties in any case depends, both bodies may be allowed to be pretty well on a par. The analogy must be allowed to hold so far: so far but no farther. One step farther and we see not only that protoplasm has, like water, a chemical and physical structure; but that, unlike water, it has also an organized or organic structure. Now this, on the part of protoplasm, is a possession in excess; and with relation to that excess there can be no grounds for analogy. This, perhaps, is what Mr. Huxley has omitted to consider. When insisting on attributing to protoplasm the qualities it possessed, because of its chemical and physical structure, if it was for chemical and physical structure that we attributed to water _its_ qualities, he has simply forgotten the addition to protoplasm of a third structure that can only be named organic. “If the phenomena exhibited by water are its properties, so are those presented by protoplasm, living or dead, its properties.” When Mr. Huxley speaks thus, Exactly so, we may answer: “living or dead!” That alternative is simply slipped in and passed; but it is in that alternative that the whole matter lies. Chemically, dead protoplasm is to Mr. Huxley quite as good as living protoplasm. As a sample of the article, he is quite content with dead protoplasm, and even swallows it, he says, in the shape of bread, lobster, mutton, etc., with all the satisfactory results to be desired.—Still, as concerns the argument, it must be pointed out that it is only these that can be placed on the same level as water; and that living protoplasm is not only unlike water, but it is unlike dead protoplasm. Living protoplasm, namely, is identical with dead protoplasm only so far as its chemistry is concerned (if even so much as that); and it is quite evident, consequently, that difference between the two cannot depend on that in which they are identical—cannot depend on the chemistry. Life, then, is no affair of chemical and physical structure, and must find its explanation in something else. It is thus that, lifted high enough, the light of the analogy between water and protoplasm is seen to go out. Water, in fact, when formed from hydrogen and oxygen, is, in a certain way and in relation to them, no new product; it has still, like them, only chemical and physical qualities; it is still, as they are, inorganic. So far as _kind_ of power is concerned, they are still on the same level. But not so protoplasm, where, with preservation of the chemical and physical likeness there is the addition of the unlikeness of life, of organization, and of ideas. But the addition is a new world—a new and higher world, the world of a self-realizing thought, the world of an _entelechy_. The change of language objected to by Mr. Huxley is thus a matter of necessity, for it is _not_ mere molecular complication that we have any longer before us, and the qualities of the derivative are essentially and absolutely different from the qualities of the primitive. If we did invent the term aquosity, then, as an abstract sign for all the qualities of water, we should really do very little harm; but aquosity and vitality would still remain essentially unlike. While for the invention of aquosity there is little or no call, however, the fact in the other case is that we are not only compelled to invent, but to _perceive_ vitality. We are quite willing to do as Mr. Huxley would have us to do: look on, watch the phenomena, and name the results. But just in proportion to our faithfulness in these respects is the necessity for the recognition of a new world and a new nomenclature. There are certainly different states of water, as ice and steam; but the relation of the solid to the liquid, or of either to the vapor, surely offers no analogy to the relation of protoplasm dead to protoplasm alive. That relation is not an analogy but an antithesis, the antithesis of antitheses. In it, in fact, we are in presence of the one incommunicable gulf—the gulf of all gulfs—that gulf which Mr. Huxley’s protoplasm is as powerless to efface as any other material expedient that has ever been suggested since the eyes of men first looked into it—the mighty gulf between death and life.