matter, which is accessory, flows on without a check. This is Cuvier's vital vortex. But for what purpose is this circulating matter used? They thought that it was employed entirely for the reconstitution of the living substance, continually and inevitably destroyed by the vital Minotaur.
Destruction of Reserve-stuff.—Here again there is a mistake. Really living substance is but little destroyed, and consequently requires very little renewal by the functional activity of the animal machine. Its metabolism—destruction and renewal—is in every case infinitely less than is supposed in the classical image of the vital vortex. It is the merit of physiologists, and particularly of Pflüger and Chauveau, to have worked for nearly forty years to establish this truth. They have proved it, at least as far as the muscular tissue is concerned. Protoplasm, properly so-called, is only destroyed as the organs of a steam engine are destroyed—its tubes, its boiler, its furnace. And it matters little. We know that such an engine uses much coal, and we know very little of its machinery and its metallic frame. And so it is with the cell, the living machine. A very small portion of the food introduced will be assimilated in the living substance. By far the greater part of it is destined to be worked up by the protoplasm and placed in reserve under the form of glycogen, albumen, and fat, etc.—i.e., compounds which are not the really living substance, the hereditary protoplasm, but the products of its industry, just as they are or may be the products of the industry of the chemist working in his laboratory. They will be expended for the purpose of furnishing the necessary energy to the vital functional activity, muscular
