THE FOUNTAIN OF CHANGE 245 



germ-cell the creature, we maintain, in its one- 

 cell phase of being play a more active part (like 

 a Foraminifer artist building a shell of Synaptid 

 anchors) and experiment in self-differentiation? 

 Dr. Gates has a stern scientific mood and does 

 not often let himself go in the region of speculation, 

 but he does not forget that the organism is alive! 

 "Just as an alpine climber dangling over a chasm 

 may, by changing his hold, swing himself on to a 

 shelf from which he can make a fresh start in some 

 other direction, so we may think of the organism 

 trying many unconscious experiments in its off- 

 spring, some of which are hurled by the gravita- 

 tional effect of natural selection into the abyss of 

 extinction, while others with a more fortunate 

 turn rest on a ledge of safety whence new essays 

 of variability begin." It is true that the author 

 comes back to the chemical and structural com- 

 plexity of the protoplasm and its unique irrita- 

 bility, but we wish that he had dwelt longer on his 

 picture of the organism as a climber. It may have 

 no fixed purpose of getting to the top, yet there may 

 be inseparable from it a restless experimenting in 

 self-expression, bearing in the germ-cell the same 

 relation to the insurgent efforts of the full-grown 

 creature that the tentatives of dreamland bear to the 

 achievements of open-eyed endeavor. 



