existence, life, which
is undeniably a reality, cannot be a property of matter. If life, being
an undisputed reality, be a property of matter, matter must needs be a
reality also, and not merely a name. Any one, however, who, like myself,
is thoroughly convinced that both halves of the doctrine are equally and
utterly erroneous, is precluded from employing one for the refutation of
the other, and in order to prove, as I shall now attempt to do, that
life is in no sense either a product or a property of matter, must
resort for the purpose to independent reasoning.

I commence by defining one of the principal terms occurring in the
debate. When in scientific discourse we speak of anything as a property
of an object, we mean thereby not simply that it is a thing belonging to
the object, but also that it is a thing without which the object could
not subsist. We mean that it is one of the constituents inherent in and
inseparable from the object, whose union gives to the object its
distinctive character. When we call fluidity at one temperature,
solidity at another, and vaporisation at a third, properties of water,
we mean that matter which did not liquefy, congeal, and evaporate at
different temperatures would not be water. The habits of exhibiting
these phenomena, in conjunction with certain other habits, make up the
aquosity or wateriness of water. They are parts of water's nature, and,
in the absence of any one of them, water would not be its own self, and
could not exist. But in no such sense, nor in any sense whatever, is the
life or vitality whereby what we are accustomed to call animated are
distinguished from inanimate objects, essential to the existence of the
species of matter termed matter of life or protoplasm. Take from water
its aquosity, and water ceases to be water; but you may take away
vitality from protoplasm, and yet leave protoplasm as much protoplasm as
before. Vitality, therefore, evidently bears to protoplasm a quite
different relation from that which aquosity bears to water. Protoplasm
can do perfectly well without the one, but water cannot for a moment
dispense with the other. Protoplasm, whether living or lifeless, is
equally itself; but unaqueous water is unmitigated gibberish. But if
protoplasm, although deprived of its vitality, still remains protoplasm,
vitality plainly is not indispensable to protoplasm, is not therefore a
_property_ of protoplasm.

And that it is not a _product_ of protopla