Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 15.djvu/765

 living cell is proved by the fact that, if the yeast be first heated to 60° C. and then placed in the oxygenated water, the quantity of oxygen in the water remains unchanged; in other words, the yeast ceases to breathe.

Schützenberger has further shown that light exerts no influence on the respiration of the yeast-cell—that the absorption of oxygen by the cell takes place in the dark exactly as in sunlight. On the other hand, the influence of temperature is well marked. Respiration is almost entirely arrested at temperatures below 10° C, it reaches its maximum at about 40° C, while at 60° C. it again ceases.

All this proves that the respiration of living beings is identical, whether manifested in the plant or in the animal. It is essentially a destructive phenomenon—as much so as the burning of a piece of charcoal in the open air, and, like it, is characterized by the disappearance of oxygen and the formation of carbonic acid.

One of the most valuable results of the recent careful application of the experimental method of research to the life-phenomena of plants is thus the complete demolition of the supposed antagonism between respiration in plants and that in animals.

I have thus endeavored to give you in a few broad outlines a sketch of the nature and properties of one special modification of matter, which will yield to none other in the interest which attaches to its study, and in the importance of the part allocated to it in the economy of nature. Did the occasion permit, I might have entered into many details which I have left untouched; but enough has been said to convince you that in protoplasm we find the only form of matter in which life can manifest itself; and that, though the outer conditions of life—heat, air, water, food—may all be present, protoplasm would still be needed, in order that these conditions may be utilized; in order that the energy of lifeless nature may be converted into that of the countless multitudes of animal and vegetable forms which dwell upon the surface of the earth or people the great depths of its seas.

We are thus led to the conception of an essential unity in the two great kingdoms of organic nature—a structural unity, in the fact that every living being has protoplasm as the essential matter of every living element of its structure; and a physiological unity, in the universal attribute of irritability which has its seat in this same protoplasm, and is the prime mover of every phenomenon of life.

We have seen how little mere form has to do with the essential properties of protoplasm. This may shape itself into cells, and the cells may combine into organs in ever-increasing complexity, and protoplasm-force may be thus intensified, and, by the mechanism of organization, turned to the best possible account; but we must still go back to protoplasm as a naked, formless plasma if we would find—freed from all non-essential complications—the agent to which has