6 Vitality and Organization of Protoplasm. 



how it is able to transform lifeless nutritive material into living sub- 

 stance; also by what means the cell gets to grow on its course towards 

 self-division; and by what agencies such self -division is really effected. 

 In fact, the intimate mode of operation of no fundamental vital process 

 has yet been scientifically explained in current biolog}^ 



The difficulty of recognizing the real processes that give rise to vital 

 activity and its visible manifestations ' was, moreover, perplexingly in- 

 creased by the discovery of the mitotic self-division of the egg-cell. Here 

 was seen what in keeping with the cell-theory, assisted by visible appear- 

 ances, had to be considered a simple cell or elementary organism, con- 

 taining, nevertheless, potentially all evolutional or developmental dis- 

 positions, which under successive cell-divisions lead to the reproduction 

 of a definite, intricately differentiated organism. Under this cell-theo- 

 retical aspect, that which constitutes the vitality of the germ cell, in- 

 clusive of its determinate vital potentialities, had to be considered either 

 scientifically inscrutable, or it required for its plausible explanation — 

 as amply exemplified in current theories — a set of far-fetched hypo- 

 thetical assumptions, which bave no slightest support in real occurrences, 

 or indeed in any known modes of activity. 



To clear the way for a correct insight into vital processes, it is im- 

 portant fii'st to expose the insufficiency of the principal theories ad- 

 vanced in explanation of the vital manifestations displayed by the germ- 

 cell or the germ-plasm during ontogenetic evolution. For in the plasm 

 of the germ-cell and its ontogenetic evolution all vital potencies are con- 

 centrated. And attempts at their interpretation occupy themselves 

 mostly with ontogenetic problems. The exposure of the radical insuffi- 

 ciency of current theories being accomplished, it would leave the way 

 open to show more effectively by what natural means protoplasm, of 

 which the germ-cell and all living beings essentially consist, really comes 

 to be alive, to be in verity what it is rightly called : the living substance. 



ONTOGENETIC PERPLEXITIES. 



In the problem of the reproduction of definitely organized beings from 

 morphologically all but undifferentiated germ-cells or germ-plasm, is 

 to be found the' most pregnant and significant task imposed upon bio- 

 logical research. In order to account for the ways and means by which 

 this wonderful formative process is effected, sundry hypothetical con- 

 jectures have been offered by leading investigators. These have been 

 generally conceived in analogy to prevailing physical thories. Ultimate 

 elementary units are he^-e also assumed as composing the substance of 

 the germ-plasm, and are hypothetically furnished with whatever en- 

 dowments are required for the attainment of the given end in view. 



The explanatory difficulties which are encountered by supposing the 

 germ-plasm to be composed of a cluster of elementary imits are, however, 

 so perplexing, that strangely extravagant conceptions have to be resorted 

 to, in order to render the interpretation at all plausible. Yet the need 

 of such exceptional hypothetical assumptions arises almost inevitably 



