424 THE LIFE OF MATTER. 



in an attack which he made upon the physiological idea8 of that time, 

 characterized the weakness of that point. "Let us disregard," he 

 said, "those interesting facts relative to the acquisition of a typical 

 form — facts that are common to the mineral world as well as to living 

 beings. It is none the less true that the crystalline type is in no way 

 derived fi'om other preexisting types, and that nothing in crystalliza- 

 tion recalls the actions of ascendants and the laws of heredity." 



Since his time this gap has been filled. The works of Gernez, of 

 Violet, of Lecoq de Boisbaudran, the experiments of Ostwald and of 

 Tammann, the observations of Crookes and of Armstrong — all this 

 series of researches, so well summarized by M. Leo Errera in his 

 essays upon philosophical botanj^, had for their result the establish- 

 ment of an unsuspected relation between the processes of crystallization 

 and those of generation in animals and plants. 



Protoj)lasni is a continuing siihdance — the case of the crystal. — Under 

 the conditions of the present time a living being of any kind springs 

 from another living being similar to itself. 



Its protoplasm is alwa^'s a continuation of the protoplasm of an 

 ancestor. It is an atavic substance which we do not see begin, which 

 we onl}^ see continue. The anatomical element comes from a preced- 

 ing anatomiciil element, and the superior animal itself comes from a 

 preexisting cell of the material organism, the &gg. The ladder of 

 filiation reaches back indefinitely into the past. 



We shall see that there is something analogous to this in certain 

 crystals. They are born from a preceding individual; they may be 

 considered as the posterity of the antecedent crystal. If we speak of 

 the matter of a crystal as the matter of a living being is spoken of in 

 cases of this kind, we should Ik: led to say that the crystalline sub- 

 stance is an atavic substance of which we see oidy the continuation, as 

 occurs in the case of protoplasm. 



(Jhm-acterUt'ics of generation in theliringhelng. — Growth of the liv- 

 ing substance, and consequently of the being itself, is the fundamental 

 law of vitality. Generation is the necessar}" consequence of growth. 



Living elements or cells can not subsist indefinitely without increas- 

 ing and multiplying. There is certain to be a time when the cell 

 divides, eithei* directly or indirectly, and soon instead of one cell there 

 are two. This is the method of generation for the anatomical element. 

 In a complex individual it is a more or less restricted part of the 

 organism, usuall}' a simple sexual cell, that takes on the formation of 

 th(^. new being and consecjuently assures the perpetuit}' of the proto- 

 plasm and, through that, of the species. 



Projjertij (f grotcth — Its .'<upposed restriction to living heings. — At 

 first it would appear that nothing like this occurs in inanimate nature. 

 'The physical machine, if we furnish it matter and energy, would seem 

 to go on working indefinitely without h(>ing ol)liged to increase and 



