A new-born babe has been defined as a lump of possibilities: it is a mass of rudiments, the unfolding of which constitutes its growth. But _protoplasm_, which, unlike the babe, is a structureless substance, of undefined form and apparently void, is the basis of _all_ life, and contains within itself the germs of an infinite development. The microscopist sees in it only a transparent mass, the chemist so many atoms of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen. But while seemingly the same in its chemical constitution, it differs immeasurably in its properties--always distinguished, however, by the soul of unrest that is within it, by its never-ceasing, self-sustained and self-generated movements. Protoplasm makes the saliva which moistens the morsel of bread; protoplasm bides its time in the new-laid egg; protoplasm weaves the tissue of the most highly endowed brain: its agency, in short, is visible in all the meanest and the supremest acts of life. No difference can be detected between its highest and its lowest forms. Yet difference must exist. The most primitive forms of life consist of simple specks of protoplasm, mere masses of organic slime, in which the particles enjoy all the life-functions share and share alike. As the babe develops into the man, so in ascending the scale of life, from the protoplasm of the infusorial am[oe]ba to that of a Newton's brain, it is step by step along a constant development and separating of dormant powers. There is nothing in the man that was not in rudiment in the babe, and so also does the am[oe]ba in its microscopic speck represent the life-power of a universe.