98 Causes and Course of Organic Evolution 



the protoplasmic molecules at the same instant start to disrupt, 

 and give rise to "secondary^ products of decomposition," which 

 are readily recognized by every biochemical student. 



But in the Acaryota, as compared ^N^tli the Caryota, we 

 deal only ^^'ith one life substance — protoplasm — that exhibits 

 all the fundamental vegetative qualities associated ^^'ith the 

 protoplasm of even the highest of the Caryota. Life energy 

 then, in its simplest and yet perfect expression, is primarily 

 associated with protoplasm, as was generally accepted between 

 1870 and 1900. 



By this we do not mean to assert that biotic energy is only 

 associated with one definite chemical substance, but rather 

 that the complex of constituent materials, which collectively 

 we term protoplasm, is the special field for its activity and 

 conductivity. 



But the too exclusive attention given to the life histories 

 of the Caryota, during the past fifteen years, has caused us 

 to misinterpret or overlook the importance of protoplasm, 

 in favor of the role played by nuclear material in the Caryota. 

 So it seems of importance to emphasize that by far the larger 

 number of unicellular organisms now living are in no sense 

 acaryotic. Though still unicellular they have evolved a nuclear 

 organization that confers on them greatly higher properties, 

 in addition to those shoTMi by the protoplasm that surrounds 

 the nucleus. In a sentence, these exhibit the biotic energy 

 of protoplasm plus the cognitic energy that traverses the nuclear 

 substance. It is the failure to recognize this exactly which 

 has, we believe, caused Binet in his otherwise excellent work 

 (56: 106) to attempt to discover "psychic" phenomena in 

 unicellular non-nucleate forms. But equally his strictures on 

 Richet's laws of irritability as dra^sTi from nucleated muscle 

 studies seem at least in part appropriate, when they oppose 

 somewhat the over-confident laws there expressed. 



The fundamental phenomena then of vegetative life we 

 regard as exactly and intimately bound up in and with the 

 protoplasm. Additional evidence therefore ^Wll now be ad- 

 vanced for considering that a biotic energy resides in, traverses. 



