" {220c}
Especially let him mistrust those who are holding forth about protoplasm,
and maintaining that this is the only living substance. Protoplasm may
be, and perhaps is, the _most_ living part of an organism, as the most
capable of retaining vibrations, of a certain character, but this is the
utmost that can be claimed for it. I have noticed, however, that
protoplasm has not been buoyant lately in the scientific market.
Having mentioned protoplasm, I may ask the reader to note the breakdown
of that school of philosophy which divided the _ego_ from the _non ego_.
The protoplasmists, on the one hand, are whittling away at _ego_, till
they have reduced it to a little jelly in certain parts of the body, and
they will whittle away this too presently, if they go on as they are
doing now.
Others, again, are so unifying the _ego_ and the _non ego_, that with
them there will soon be as little of the _non ego_ left as there is of
the _ego_ with their opponents. Both, however, are so far agreed as that
we know not where to draw the line between the two, and this renders
nugatory any system which is founded upon a distinction between them.
The truth is, that all classification whatever, when we examine its
_raison d'etre_ closely, is found to be arbitrary--to depend on our sense
of our own convenience, and not on any inherent distinction in the nature
of the things themselves.
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