But this "pellicle" of Professor Bastian is not mere structureless matter, any more than the "bioplast" of Professor Beale. The fact that they move, pulsate, work in all directions, shows that they have the necessary organs with which to work. These organs may be invisible in the field of the microscope, but that is no proof that they do not exist. Organs are as essential for locomotion in a plastide particle as in a mastodon or megatherium, and if the microscope could only give back the proper response, we should see them, if not be filled with wonder at the marvellous perfection of their structure. But into whatever divisions or classifications we may distinguish or generalize the properties of matter, we can never predicate _vitality_ of it, any more than we can predicate _intellectuality_. Indeed, "intellectual matter" presents no greater incongruity or invalidity of conception than "vital matter." These qualifying terms are applied to the known laws and forces of nature, not to insensate matter. To assert that life results _from_ "certain combinations and rearrangements of matter," and not _in_ them, is utterly to confound cause and effect, or so incongruously mingle them together that no logical distinction between the two can exist as an object of perception. Without the _vis vitæ_, or some germinal principle of life, lying back of these "combinations and rearrangements of matter," and determining the movements of their constituent molecules, there could be no vital manifestation, any more than there could be a correlate of a force without the actual existence of the force itself. [25]