Vitality and Organization of Protoplasm. 73 



atozoon manage to become materially and potentially unified with the 

 ,i(erm-plasm of the e^g, without upsetting the intimate specific potential 

 constitution and bilateral arrangement possessed by the egg-plasm be- 

 fore fertilization, which determines the formative course of ontogenetic 

 evolution? This question gives expression to the most central and es- 

 sential problem of bisexual ontogenetic evolution. And it may be re- 

 garded as the stronghold of those who believe nuclear plasm to be the 

 sole and real germ-plasm. For the head of the spermatozoon is un- 

 deniably of nuclear origin and consistency. It represents in fact a 

 complete nucleus. Now, if the nuclear head really carries with it all 

 male ontogenetic potentialities, and if the nucleus of the egg, with 

 which it combines, contains on its side all female ontogenetic poten- 

 tialities, then, despite all contrary considerations, there is no escaping 

 the conclusion that the rest of the fertilized egg-plasm can be only in- 

 different raw-material at the service of the ontogenetically evolving nu- 

 clear plasm. And in this case the alleged organization and bilateral 

 constitution of the non-nuclear egg-plasm could be of no ontogenetic 

 consequence. 



Hence to avoid this dilemma more felt than recognized, we have the 

 elaborate theories of diversely endowed and diversely aggregated forma- 

 tive units, assumed to compose the minute speck of nuclear plasm, nay, 

 to compose the much more minute chromosome. To these hypothetical, 

 ultra-microscopical elements would then fall the stupendous task of 

 structurally reproducing from out their invisible retreat the compara- 

 tively enormous bulk of the adult organism. For, as just stated, under 

 the assumption of formative chromatic elements it is logically inadmis- 

 sible to attribute to somatic plasm any other office than that of supply- 

 ing constructive raw-material to the chromatic germs. They alone would 

 have to construct the adult organism, out and out, by means of their own 

 self-divisions or spontaneous multiplications, which proliferation would 

 have to occur at an inconceivably prodigious rate, resulting in an organ- 

 ism consisting of nothing but chromatic units, miraculously aggregated 

 so as to constitute the tissues and the form of the adult organism, and 

 to actuate its many interdependent functions. 



It is true, the visible specific divisions and sections of chromosomes, 

 with their definite, numerically regulated distribution, and their specific 

 mode of deployment, afford a tempting ground-work whereupon to 

 erect theories of heredity and ontogeny. But the nuclear, aggregational 

 hypothesis of vital and ontogenetic potencies possessed singly by an in- 

 credible host of invisible elementary units ; such an hypothesis is directly 

 contradicted by the very nature of the living substance out of which 

 all organisms are formed. And it is refuted by the non-participation of 

 the nucleus in all essential vital manifestations and formative processes. 

 The distinctly circumscribed nucleus of some amoeba, for instance, take, 

 as already stated, no active part in the vital manifestations of the im- 

 mensely larger bulk of non-nuclear plasm, nor in its formative phe- 

 nomena. The cvcle of chemical activities which sives rise to the vital- 



