Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 3.djvu/699

Rh planation of these phenomena, but only another mode of stating them, to say that these organisms have become "accustomed" to such temperatures. If this degree of heat were absolutely incompatible with the activity of living matter, the plants could no more resist it than they could become "accustomed" to being made red hot. Habit may modify subsidiary, but cannot affect fundamental, conditions.

Recent investigations point to the conclusion that the immediate cause of the arrest of vitality, in the first place, and of its destruction, in the second, is the coagulation of certain substances in the protoplasm, and that the latter contains various coagulable matters, which solidify at different temperatures. And it remains to be seen, how far the death of any form of living matter, at a given temperature, depends on the destruction of its fundamental substance at that heat, and how far death is brought about by the coagulation of merely accessory compounds.

It may be safely said of all those living things which are large enough to enable us to trust the evidence of microscopes, that they are heterogeneous optically, and that their different parts, and especially the surface layer, as contrasted with the interior, differ physically and chemically; while, in most living things, mere heterogeneity is exchanged for a definite structure, whereby the body is distinguished into visibly different parts, which possess different powers or functions. Living things which present this visible structure are said to be organized; and so widely does organization obtain among living beings, that organized and living are not unfrequently used as if they were terms of co-extensive applicability. This, however, is not exactly accurate, if it be thereby implied that all living things have a visible organization, as there are numerous forms of living matter of which it cannot properly be said that they possess either a definite structure or permanently specialized organs: though, doubtless, the simplest particle of living matter must possess a highly complex molecular structure, which is far beyond the reach of vision.

The broad distinctions which, as a matter of fact, exist between every known form of living substance and every other component of the material world, justify the separation of the biological sciences from all others. But it must not be supposed that the differences between living and not-living matter are such as to justify the assumption that the forces at work in the one are different from those which are to be met with in the other. Considered apart from the phenomena of consciousness, the phenomena of life are all dependent upon the working of the same physical and chemical forces as those which are active in the rest of the world. It may be convenient to use the terms "vitality" and "vital force" to denote the causes of certain great groups of natural operations, as we employ the names of "electricity" and "electrical force" to denote others; but it ceases to be proper to do so, if such a name implies the absurd assumption that "electricity" and "vitality" are entities playing the part of efficient causes of electrical or vital phenomena. A mass of living protoplasm is simply a molecular machine of great complexity, the total results of the working of which, or its vital phenomena, depend, on the one hand, upon its construction, and, on the other, upon the energy supplied to it; and to speak of "vitality" as anything but the name of a series of operations is as if one should talk of the "horologity" of a clock.

Living matter, or protoplasm and the products of its metamorphosis, may be regarded under four aspects:—

(1.) It has a certain external and internal form, the latter being more usually called structure;

(2.) It occupies a certain position in space and in time;

(3.) It is the subject of the operation of certain forces in virtue of which it undergoes internal changes, modifies, external objects, and is modified by them; and

(4.) Its form, place, and powers are the effects of certain causes.

In correspondence with these four aspects of its subject, biology is divisible into four chief subdivisions—I. ; II. ; III. ; IV. .}}

I..

So far as living beings have a form and structure, they fall within the province of Anatomy and Histology, the latter being merely a name for that ultimate optical analysis of living structure which can be carried out only by the aid of the microscope.

And, in so far as the form and structure of any living being are not constant during the whole of its existence, but undergo a series of changes from the commencement of that existence to its end, living beings have a Development. The history of development is an account of the anatomy of a living being at the successive periods of its existence, and of the manner in which one anatomical stage passes into the next.

Finally, the systematic statement and generalization of the facts of Morphology, in such a manner as to arrange living beings in groups according to their degrees of like ness, is Taxonomy.

The study of Anatomy and Development has brought to light certain generalizations of wide applicability and great importance.

Most plants and animals are aggregates of cells

1. It has been said that the great majority of living beings present a very definite structure. Unassisted vision and ordinary dissection suffice to separate the body of any of the higher animals, or plants, into fabrics of different of sorts, which always present the same general arrangement in the same organism, but are combined in different ways in different organisms. The discrimination of these comparatively few fabrics, or tissues, of which organisms are composed, was the first step towards that ultimate analysis of visible structure which has become possible only by the recent perfection of microscopes and of methods of preparation.

Histology, which embodies the results of this analysis, shows that every tissue of a plant is composed of more or less modified structural elements, each of which is termed a cell; which cell, in its simplest condition, is merely a spheroidal mass of protoplasm, surrounded by a coat or sac the cell-wall which contains cellulose. In the various tissues, these cells may undergo innumerable modifications of form the protoplasm may become differentiated into a nucleus with its nucleolus, a primordial utricle, and a cavity filled with a watery fluid, and the cell-wall may be variously altered in composition or in structure, or may coalesce with others. But, however extensive these changes may be, the fact that the tissues are made up of morphologically distinct units the cells remains patent. And, if any doubt could exist on the subject, it would be removed by the study of development, which proves that every plant commences its existence as a simple cell, identical in its fundamental characters with the less modified of those cells of which the whole body is composed.

But it is not necessary to the morphological unit of the plant that it should be always provided with a cell-wall. Certain plants, such as Protococcus, spend longer or shorter periods of their existence in the condition of a mere spheroid of protoplasm, devoid of any cellulose wall, while, at other times, the protoplasmic body becomes enclosed within a cell-wall, fabricated by its superficial layer.

Therefore, just as the nucleus, the primordial utricle, and the central fluid are no essential constituents of the