GENERAL PHYSIOLOGY 173 



of the constituent parts, and salts or electrolytes and the continued 

 activity between them (cf. Clowes, Overton, Mathews). 



The speed of specific chemical actions is a characteristic vital 

 phenomenon due to the participation of subtle and elusive, but 

 specific, catalytic agents, the enzymes. 



This aggregate of colloidal substances forming polyphasic physical 

 systems in protoplasm is the seat of the multitude of activities 

 characteristic of life. Huxley's definition of protoplasm as the 

 physical Basis of Life does not carry us very far in the analysis of 

 living matter. In a moving protozoon there is a constant interaction 

 of the various substances making up its protoplasm— oxidation, 

 enzyme formation and action, amidization and deamidization, dis- 

 integration and regeneration, protein break-down and protein recon- 

 struction, all taking place simultaneously or seriatim. Substances 

 in this whirlpool of action may be regarded as living so long as 

 they are, or may be, drawn into the vortex of protoplasmic activi- 

 ties. The results of these multitudinous activities contribute to the 

 well-being of one organism. In another moving protozoon a similar 

 bewildering complex of activities likewise results in the well-being, 

 in this case of a distinctly different type of protozoon. The first 

 protozoon, let it be a Didinium nasutum, captures and swallows the 

 second, say a Paramecium caudatum. It is well known that a frag- 

 ment of a protozoon will regenerate into a perfect organism of its 

 type and we might well be perplexed by the problem why is it that 

 the Paramecium protoplasm in Didinium does not manifest itself as 

 Paramecium and not as Didinium. The answer to this apparently 

 simple problem is a matter of organization or the manner in which 

 the fundamental substances making up the protoplasm in the two 

 organisms are put together and interact. The architectonic of 

 Driesch, or protoplasmic architecture, is specific for each type of 

 organism and the form and structures of the organism are expres- 

 sions of this architecture. When this organization disintegrates, 

 life and the possibility of controlled reactions are lost and the 

 erstwhile living protoplasm becomes dead matter. This happens 

 when Paramecium is paralyzed by the seizing organ of Didinium 

 (see Fig. 98, p. 187). The vital activities of Paramecium are sud- 

 denly stopped, and disintegration of its organization, through 

 hydrolysis, continues with the digestive processes in Didinium. 

 The inert proteins, probably as amino-acids, are re-integrated in 

 the Didinium protoplasm, and what was living substance in Para- 

 mecium, now enters again, through a form of transmigration, into 

 the vortex of vital activities of quite another type of organism. 



The sum total of the various physiological processes of the in- 

 dividual may be grouped for the Protozoa, as they are for the 

 Metazoa, inter aggregates of special activities which we call the 

 fundamental vital functions, and distinguish as respiration, nutri- 



