To say wherever there is life there is protoplasm, is to say that
there can be no life without protoplasm, and this is saying that
where there is no protoplasm there is no life. But large parts of
the body are non-protoplasmic; a bone is, indeed, permeated by
protoplasm, but it is not protoplasm; it follows, therefore, that
according to Professor Allman bone is not in any proper sense of
words a living substance. From this it should follow, and doubtless
does follow in Professor Allman's mind, that large tracts of the
human body, if not the greater part by weight (as bones, skin,
muscular tissues, &c.), are no more alive than a coat or pair of
boots in wear is alive, except in so far as the bones, &c., are more
closely and nakedly permeated by protoplasm than the coat or boots,
and are thus brought into closer, directer, and more permanent
communication with that which, if not life itself, still has more of
the ear of life, and comes nearer to its royal person than anything
else does. Indeed that this is Professor Allman's opinion appears
from the passage on page 26 of the report, in which he says that in
"protoplasm we find the only form of matter in which life can
manifest itself."

According to this view the skin and other tissues are supposed to be
made from dead protoplasm which living protoplasm turns to account
as the British Museum authorities are believed to stuff their new
specimens with the skins of old ones; the matter used by the living
protoplasm for this purpose is held to be entirely foreign to
protoplasm itself, and no more capable of acting in concert with it
than bricks can understand and act in concert with the bricklayer.
As the bricklayer is held to be living and the bricks non-living, so
the bones and skin which protoplasm is supposed to construct are
held non-living and the protoplasm alone living. Protoplasm, it is