84 Causes and Course of Organic Evolution 



As compared even ^^-ith protoplasm and its accessory con- 

 stituents, therefore, in dealing with the Caryota, we have now 

 to recognize a greatly more complex cell-substance, which — 

 foreshadowed morphologically and physiologically by the 

 chromidia in Acaryota — now becomes an integral and invariable 

 factor of every h\ang cell of the entire series. But though 

 exact, stable, specific in its molecules, and in their inter-atomic 

 arrangement, as was the substance of the protoplasm, it must 

 be acknowledged, as in line with all modern views of energ;^^ 

 and ether relation, that the constituents of the chromatin 

 substance are absolutely inert and passive unless molded and 

 guided by currents of energy. Are its constituent molecules 

 then built into position by biotic or some one of the inorganic 

 energies.? Or has its upbuilding been associated with, and 

 been the outcome of, a special nuclear or chromatin energy? 



We hope to show by degrees that the latter seems not only 

 to be true, but that the existence and influence of such an 

 energy as we have proposed to name the cognitic goes far to 

 solve many of the most difficult problems in the organic kingdom. 



But, if such energies or phases of energy as the biotic and 

 cognitic exist, some explanation needs to be offered as to their 

 relation to the lower or inorganic energies. Such seems to 

 present itself when we try to follow the origin of each. Currents 

 of thermic, chemic, and electric energy constantly traverse 

 the living tissues of plants and animals. The varying amounts 

 or strengths of these currents have been estimated by Burdon 

 Sanderson (46), Kunkel (^7), and very delicately by Waller 

 in his galvanometric studies on plant (48: 6) and animal tissues 

 (28). If it be true for inorganic colloids that a special 

 double condensation of electric charge (pp. 19, 23) exists, such 

 at least should be true for the greatly more complex organic 

 colloids. But the intrinsic molecular capacity for building 

 up, for breaking down, and for metabolic change from colloid 

 to crystalloid and vice versa, shown by organic colloids, is 

 so greatly superior to anything shown by the inorganic that 

 we postulate at once a graded energy transformation and 

 condensation toward the biotic exhibition of energy. This 



