The position, then, stands thus. Common sense gave the inch of
admitting some parts of the body to be less living than others, and
philosophy took the ell of declaring the body to be almost all of it
stone dead. This is serious; still if it were all, for a quiet
life, we might put up with it. Unfortunately we know only too well
that it will not be all. Our bodies, which seemed so living and now
prove so dead, have served us such a trick that we can have no
confidence in anything connected with them. As with skin and bones
to-day, so with protoplasm to-morrow. Protoplasm is mainly oxygen,
hydrogen, nitrogen, and carbon; if we do not keep a sharp look out,
we shall have it going the way of the rest of the body, and being
declared dead in respect, at any rate, of these inorganic
components. Science has not, I believe, settled all the components
of protoplasm, but this is neither here nor there; she has settled
what it is in great part, and there is no trusting her not to settle
the rest at any moment, even if she has not already done so. As
soon as this has been done we shall be told that nine-tenths of the
protoplasm of which we are composed must go the way of our non-
protoplasmic parts, and that the only really living part of us is
the something with a new name that runs the protoplasm that runs the
flesh and bones that run the organs -

Why stop here? Why not add "which run the tools and properties
which are as essential to our life and health as much that is
actually incorporate with us?" The same breach which has let the
non-living effect a lodgment within the body must, in all equity,
let the organic character--bodiliness, so to speak--pass out beyond
its limits and effect a lodgment in our temporary and extra-
corporeal limbs. What, on the protoplasmic theory, the skin and