Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 5.djvu/479

Rh have discovered the half of them; much less their interminable combinations. And yet, as to organic life in general, is it not confessed that, if we could only account for the existence of the cell, of that first morsel of colloid matter, we should have the key to all its mysteries?

Very well. What is a cell? Or, expressed in other words, what is that drop—that particle of matter, called now by that same old fashion of supplying phrases when ideas fail—protoplasm? What is protoplasm?

For aught we know, there may be monads or gemmules of organic creatures, as conjectured by Mr. Spencer and Mr. Darwin, there may be a peculiar substance endowed with life as a property, as conjectured by Mr. Huxley, there may be these atoms of organic life—the bases of organizations; and organized creatures may be definite arrangements of these, for aught we know. But really, except as a provisional theory, used, as we see it in the notion of Pangenesis put forth by the great naturalist, merely to aid in rising to other conceptions, there is very little need for such a supposition. Especially is it to be used guardedly. For, while put forth expressly in analogy to the atomic theory in chemistry, which is an aid to grasp the law of definite proportions, it is to be feared that many will so lean upon the crutch, they may never learn to walk. We know that in chemistry this is true; that many possessed of feeble powers of abstraction rest in the doctrine of atoms as the final fact; as in religion feeble minds stop at the forms and images used, and fail to comprehend the Deity taught and concealed thereby.

Rightly understood, the doctrines of Protoplasm, of Gemmules, et id omne genus, if they aid little, can do little harm. For, to the physiologist, there remains the great fact that organization is life. In, through, and by means of organization, or, if you prefer it, an organism, is matter endowed with life. So far as physiology, and therefore natural science and physics, is concerned in this matter, life does not exist without organization. Now, then, what is the first, the simplest form of organization—the primordial type of organic creatures? It is a cell. For, notice what is really meant by an organism—an organized creature. It is a creature that has functions dependent upon organs or parts. There is, then, in the very simplest organism already a manifestation of Von Baer's great law in biology—differentiation. Without differentiation there is no organization, and without organization, again, no life.

It is impossible to stop here to dwell upon the organization of a cell, and the proofs of it in unicellular creatures. This has been more fully treated of in some of my earlier productions. Still, a glance at this question—how? whence?—was promised.

See, then, this drop of colloid matter—this protoplasm—this cell. It can scarcely be called protoplasm until there is organization; and, if