The living substance of protoplasm contains a large quantity of water, at least two-thirds its mass, as we have seen, in a state of physical or loose chemical combination with solids: these on death yield proteids and nucleo-proteids.[15] The living protoplasm {13}has an alkaline reaction, while the liquid in the larger vacuoles, at least, is acid, especially in Plant-cells.[16] METABOLISM.—The chemical processes that go on in the organism are termed metabolic changes, and were roughly divided by Gaskell into (1) "anabolic," in which more complex and less stable substances are built up from less complex and more stable ones with the absorption of energy; and (2) "catabolic" changes in which the reverse takes place. Anabolic processes, in all but the cells containing plastids or chromatophores (see p. 36) under the influence of light, necessarily imply the furnishing of energy by concurrent catabolic changes in the food or reserves, or in the protoplasm itself. Again, we have divided anabolic processes into "accumulative," where the substances formed are merely reserves for the future use of the cell, and "assimilative," where the substances go to the building of the protoplasm itself, whether for the purpose of growth or for that of repair. Catabolic processes may involve (1) the mere breaking of complex substances into simpler ones, or (2) their combination with oxygen; in either case waste products are formed, which may either be of service to the organism as "secretions" (like the bile in Higher Animals), or of no further use (like the urine). When nitrogenous substances break down in this way they give rise to "excretions," containing urea, urates, and allied substances; other products of catabolism are carbon dioxide, water, and mineral salts, such as sulphates, phosphates, carbonates, oxalates, etc., which if not insoluble must needs be removed promptly from the organism, many of them being injurious or even poisonous. The energy liberated by the protoplasm being derived through the breakdown of another part of the same or of the {14}food-materials or stored reserves, must give rise to waste products. The exchange of oxygen from without for carbonic acid formed within is termed "respiration," and is distinguished from the mere removal of all other waste products called "excretion." In the fresh-water Amoeba both these processes can be studied.