70 Vitality and Organization of Protoplasm. 



developmental process, the unitary, indiscerptil)]e organism of which 

 they are complemental parts. As halves of a common whole, they pan 

 certainly not be autonomous, elementary beings, the offspring of an 

 elementary mother-cell. 



This simple consideration contains, it must be again insisted /ipon 

 as of utmost importance, inevasively the complete refutation of the cell- 

 Ljheorj. For it is of the essence of this theory that an elementary mother- 

 cell propogates by fissiparous division, autonomous lineal offspring of 

 the same kind. Instead of this, all successive divisions of the egg- 

 plasm prove to be divers interdependent, complemental parts of a strictly 

 predetermined whole. There could be no more thorough-going disparity 

 than here obtains between the generally accepted cell-theory and the real 

 state of things, as unmistakably revealed by experimental ontogeny. Of 

 whatever nature and import the more or less distinct cellular divisions 

 of the organism may be, they are"* certainly not the autonomous lineal 

 progeny of an eleinentary cellular being, which the cell-theory declares 

 tKemto be. At every step of our biological interpretation we have found 

 the cell-theory obscuring, instead of elucidating the scientific explana- 

 tion of observable facts. 



On further segmentation it seems that the two different germinal 

 layers, the ectodermic and the entodermic substance become plasmati- 

 cally and germihally segregated. The organism to be evolved from the 

 two primary germinal layers, as they are called, stands constitutionally 

 in opposite relations to the surrounding medium. The ectoderm repre- 

 sents mainly the structures that minister to the life of active outside 

 relations, the Jife that carries on the functional play with the dyna- 

 mical influences of the medium. Entodermic plasm, on the other hand, 

 evolves the organs of the so-called vegetative life, which enters into 

 direct interaction with the nutritive material furnished by the medium, 

 and elaborates assimilable pabulum for functional restitution. Here 

 also both layers, though more or less distinctly divided from each other, 

 evolve their structures conjointly in subservience of the unitary purpose 

 of reproducing the indiscerptible adult organism. 



As to subsequent stages of segmentation, they would seem, to judge 

 from final results, to segregate the plasm destined to evolve the separate 

 metameres, of which the organism is composed. Each metamere repre- 

 sen ts an orig ^ijiaL^Qgixl, which contains a complete structural organiza- 

 tion of_its own, retaining it ontogenetically, though blended more ar less 

 intimately with the unitary organization of the complex individual to 

 be reproduced as the final aim of the entire reproductive process. 



The division into the prospective metamera would then be followed 

 by the parallel evolution of the sundry structures found respectively to 

 form^ part of them. And as regards nutritive and depurative organs 

 they would all along concomitantly evolve in constant harmony with 

 ectodermic organs. 



The obvious inference from all these ontogenetic phenomena is, that 

 every stage and division of the eminently complex evolution, iiowever 



