60 A. E. HILTON ON THE LIFE- PHASES OF 3IYCET0Z0A. 



set lip at the points indicated by the nuclei are regulated for the 

 benefit of the organism. Exactly how the energy is regulated by. 

 the specific texture of the plasm of each living thing, for its own 

 particular ends, science cannot yet tell us ; and the task of 

 investigation is one of the most difficult. But that the living- 

 substance of which all organisms consist owes its strange powers 

 to radio-active* energy continually liberated within it, at in- 

 numerable aud almost mathematical points, closely distributed 

 throughout its whole mass, appears to be beyond doubt ; and of 

 this the Mycetozoa, in the act of spore-formation, furnish a 

 luminous example for which we may be grateful. For, lowly as 

 they are, we cannot regard the Mycetozoa as otherwise than in 

 essential accord with the constitution of the whole teeming world 

 of organic life, with all its wonderful developments in the direc- 

 tion of the higher organisms which have left the primitive 

 Mycetozoa so far behind. 



* See footnote on previous page. 



Joarii. Quxketl Microscopical Club, Scr. 2, Vol. XJ., Xo. oT, Nocduibtr 1910. 



