86 Causes and Course of Organic Evolution 



used up in a few days; were it charged with chemic or electric 

 energy such would be exhausted or radiated out into space in 

 a few months. But such a trunk may be left alive in a slowly 

 metabolizing state for at least a year. No proof has yet been 

 adduced that electric or chemic energy separately or together 

 are capable of effecting such energy radiations from like linked- 

 up elements. All details of the general phenomenon point 

 to some more perfect form of energy. So we would define 

 protoplasm as a definitely correlated rotatory motion of variously 

 energized (or linked) and highly complex groups of ether particles 

 of colloid nature, in which the specific rates of motion between 

 the groups are an expression of hiotic energy. Such energy of 

 intra-molecular storage or reservation is continuously expended 

 in causing synchronous motion of other and less complex or 

 less energized ether particles that may come ^'ithin its field 

 of action, and these gradually become absorbed into the same 

 rotatory or protoplasmic system, to replace that which is being 

 expended or broken down. 



But such considerations lead us to a very important and 

 interesting connection that exists between protoplasm and the 

 nucleus, that is,- between biotic and cognitic energy. AYhy, 

 it may be asked, do we speak only of biotic energy in dormant 

 plant parts such as seeds, bulbs, etc., and not equally of biotic- 

 cognitic energy, since all of its cells are nucleated.^ Because 

 abundant experimental evidence can be, and later ^i\\ be, 

 advanced to prove that nucleo-protein substance, alike amongst 

 plants and animals, is greatly more susceptible to environal 

 change than is the protoplasm. So when, by gradual elevation 

 or lowering of temperature beyond a sub-maximum or sub- 

 minimum, by gradual evaporation of water to a sub-minimal 

 or dessication point, by gradual shutting off of light action 

 by formation of pigmented cell walls, the cognitic energy seems 

 less and less perfectly to flow and to energize each of the associ- 

 ated cells. So the nucleo-protein substance of each cell passes 

 into an extremely reduced state of energized acti^^ty that may 

 be termed suspended vitality. Numerous illustrations of such 

 vnW be cited later from the vegetable and animal kingdoms. 



