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VI.

LIFE, OR MECHANISM,-WHICH?

THE FIFTY-FIRST LECTURE IN THE BOSTON MONDAY LECTURESHIP, DELIVERED IN THE PARK

STREET CHURCH NOV. 6.

"Tu cuncta superno

Ducis ab exemplo, pulchrum pulcherimus ipse
Mundum mente gerens, similique imagine formans."
BOETHIUS, De Consol., 9.

"WHAT time this world's great workmaister did cast
To make all things such as we now behold,
It seems that He before His eyes had plast
A goodly patterne, to whose perfect mould
He fashioned them as comely as He could,
That now so fair and seeinly they appear;
As naught may be amended anywhere.

That wondrous patterne, wheresoeer it be,
Whether in Earth, laid up in secret store,
Or else in Heaven, that no man may it see
With sinful eyes, for fear it to deflore,
Is perfect beauty."-SPENSER.

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Perpendicular section through thick layer of epithelium covering a papilla of the tongue, showing the bioplasm or living matter and the formed material of each elementary unit or cell.

Here there

These are the young

In the lower part of figure 1, the cells which are closest to the nutrient matter are seen. are no SEPARATE CELLS, but the soft formed material forms a continuous mass. est bioplasts, and are multiplying in number. When the formed material has accumulated around the bioplasm to some extent the process of multiplication ceases. As the cells advance towards the surface, C, to take the place of those removed, the formed material becomes firin and dry, and the remains of the biopiasm die, when the whole "cell" consists of liteless formed material only.

[graphic]

x 700.

Bioplasin aud
elastic tissue,
or formed ma-
terial. The
is
bioplasm
moving in the
direction of
the arrow and
forming the
elastic tissue
as it proceeds.

[graphic]

Bioplasm and formed
material (contractile
muscle.
tissue) of
The bioplasm is mov-
ing in the direction
indicated by the
arrow. It is now
between a and b, but
was between 6 and e

of

Development
young dark-bordered
nerve fibres at a very
early period, showing
bioplasm and formed
material of young el-
ementary parts

nd
the fine fibre coiling

spirally round the developing dark bor

dered fibre.

x about 1800.

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