x VITALITY 183 



tion is with growth, for we are led to consider develop- 

 ment the power that a separated part has of growing 

 and differentiating until it has literally reproduced the 

 whole. Development is the making visible of the latent 

 potentialities the intrinsic manifoldness of the liberated 

 fragment, or sample, or cell. And while the development 

 of a fertilised egg-cell into an organism remains to us 

 among the greatest wonders of the world, we would 



O C 1 * 



suggest that it may be profitably thought of as in line 

 with the processes which are always going on to keep 

 the specific organisation in good repair. Every grada- 

 tion between the two may be found in the interesting 

 phenomena of regeneration by which lost parts are re- 



grown. 



The three facts of growing, multiplying, and develop- 

 ment may be thought of together under the conception 

 of cyclical development which Huxley was wont to empha- 

 sise in his discussion of the characteristics of living 

 creatures. From a microscopic egg-cell an embryo plant 

 develops ; the ovule becomes a seed, the seed a seedling ; 

 by insensible steps there is fashioned a large and varied 

 fabric of root and stem, leaves and flowers. But no 

 sooner has the edifice attained completeness than it 

 begins to crumble. The grass withereth and the flower 

 thereof fadeth, and soon there is nothing left but the 

 seeds, which begin the cycle anew. ' It is," Huxley said, 

 " a Sisyphean process, in the course of which the living 

 and growing plant passes from the relative simplicity 

 and latent potentiality of the seed to the full epiphany 

 of a highly differentiated type, thence to fall back to 

 simplicity and potentiality again." So in the varied 

 life-histories of animals there is usually an ascending 

 and a descending curve from the vita minima of the egg- 

 cell to the vita minima of senescence, or to the not less 

 frequent terminus of violent death while the creature is 

 still in its prime. 



Behind the powers of growing, multiplying, develop- 

 ing, and growing again, there is perhaps the organism's 

 unique power of accumulating energy acceleratively. 

 As Prof. Joly has pointed out : " The transfer of energy 



