POPULAR SCIENCE 261 



the fundamental cycle ; in such an organised system of Forces as 

 our Solar System, the super-cycles or overtones of the Satellites 

 are capable of exerting an appreciable action upon the 

 fundamental cycle, contributing as they do to the Moment of 

 Momentum of the System. 



With our knowledge of Immunity, then, we can see what was 

 probably the beginning and development of Biotic Energy : a 

 primitive enzyme existing in an unsuitable medium — for every 

 medium must necessarily be unsuitable in some degree, the 

 converse being only possible with an ultimate equilibrium — 

 must produce a something to render the medium less harmful, 

 and at the same time the enzyme must alter its own complexity 

 to promote its survival ; for though no complete equilibration 

 is possible. Nature is nevertheless working in this direction. 

 A slow repetition of these processes will account for the 

 " genesis " and development of Biotic Energy to its present 

 state. 



That these overtones or super-rhythms are more permanent 

 than the overtones of sound vibration is clearly shown by certain 

 indisputable facts : the latter are only possible in the medium 

 of our atmosphere ; but as Helmholtz, in his vortex theory, 

 proved, were it possible to start such rhythms in an atmosphere 

 of no density, their permanency would be ensured. Again, 

 even in our atmosphere, the more complex these overtones, the 

 more permanent is their nature ; it seems as if, in their com- 

 plexity, they have made provisions to avoid natural resistance. 

 We see this provision and persistence in such overtones as those 

 responsible for Natural Immunity, and in the Laws of Heredity 

 we also meet with a superabundance of similar evidence. A 

 tree imported to the Northern from the Southern Hemisphere, 

 such as the Eucalyptus, will show the persistence of an overtone 

 in manifesting its natural partial autumnal change out of time 

 with the new climate, and independently from the rhythms of 

 the fundamental forces of the Sun as it lives in the new climate. 

 Again, in heredity, we see that only the transmission of certain 

 overtones from the parent to the offspring can explain the law 

 that like begets like and the transmission of acquired characters. 

 Further, the rhythmical nature of the operating forces is clearly 

 demonstrated in the obedience to the Mendelian Law. All these 

 facts support the views expressed elsewhere, that the living 

 protoplasm retains some of the periodic forces from Cosmic 

 sources.^ These two branches of science almost raise the theory 

 under discussion to the dignity of established facts. 



In this light, the " pangenetic particles " of matter that con- 

 vey certain complexes of matter to the organs of reproduction, 

 as assumed by Darwin's theory of Pangenesis, can be considered 

 ^ Science Progress, January 1920, p. 418. 



