m THE CASE AGAINST EVOLUTION 



ment. The race, however, inevitably dies out, if both 

 encystment and conjugation are prevented. Even in 

 such protists as do not exhibit the phenomenon of nuclear 

 reorganization through sexual reproduction, Kofoid points 

 to the phenomenon of alternating periods of rest and rapid 

 cell-division as evidence that some process of periodically- 

 recurrent nuclear organization must exist in the organisms, 

 which do not conjugate. This process of nuclear reorgani- 

 zation manifested by periodic spurts of renewed divisional 

 energy is, according to Kofoid, a more primitive mode of 

 rejuvenation than endomixis. "The phenomenon of endo- 

 mixis," he says, "appears to be somewhat more like that of 

 parthenogenesis than a more primitive form of nuclear re- 

 organization." {Science, April 6, 1923, p. 403.) At all events, 

 it seems safe to conclude that the tendency to senescence is 

 pretty general among living organisms, and that this tendency, 

 unless counteracted by a periodic reorganization of the nuclear 

 genes, results inevitably in the deterioration and final ex- 

 tinction of the race. 



In this inexhaustible power of self-renewal inherent in all 

 forms of organic life, the mechanist and the upholder of 

 abiogenesis encounter an insuperable difficulty. In inorganic 

 nature, where the perpetual-motion device is a chimera, and 

 the law of entropy reigns in unchallenged supremacy, noth- 

 ing analogous to it can be found. The activity of all non- 

 living units of nature, from the hydrogen atom to the protein 

 multimolecule, is rigidly determined by the principle of the 

 degradation of energy. The inorganic unit cannot operate 

 otherwise than by externalizing and dissipating irreparably its 

 own energy-content. Nor is its reconstruction and replenish- 

 ment with energy ever again possible except through the 

 wasteful expenditure of energy borrowed from some more 

 richly endowed inorganic unit. In order to pay Paul a little, 

 Peter must be robbed of much. Wheresoever atoms are built 

 up into complex endothermic molecules, the constructive 



