CoGNiTic State of Energy 119 



evolutionary stages can still be traced in ascent from the sim- 

 plest to the highest plants, also from the simplest to the highest 

 animals, and finally what connection they may show with 

 chromatin and a possible cognitic energy. For none of these 

 questions can be separated from each other. 



If we start with the view that the primitive and simplest 

 spherical bacteria were composed only of protoplasm that was 

 mainly vegetative and autoenergizing in function, in virtue 

 of their biotic energy — and all observational evidence is in 

 favor of this — such cells would show sluggish and also equi- 

 symmetrical response to environal stimuli. But the environal 

 stimuli that would be called into play would be first the chemo- 

 tactic and next the heliotactic. For, if the view already put 

 forth here (p. 40) be correct, primitive spherical plants that 

 had the same mode of nutrition as have the sulphur and iron 

 bacteria now would be mainly, perhaps wholly, chemotactically 

 equisymmetrical. 



But, with the gradual evolution of the peripheral chroma- 

 tophore, the centrally placed protoplasm would retain its 

 function, but glycogen food would be formed in the former, 

 and on accumulation would appear as the globules of Hegler 

 and others. In process of slow evolution, however, from the 

 blue-green to simpler green algae (Chap. II), the glycogen 

 evidently became changed into the more complex oil or starch, 

 now met with in the green algae as the reserve oil or carbohy- 

 drate. This necessarily involved a greater expenditure of energy 

 for oil formation, and still more for starch formation (26: 6*2). 



So, in the peripheral chromatophore-centers of liighly ener- 

 gized substance, the pyrenoids or chloroplast centers arose, 

 which by their high intra-molecular energy could transform 

 the crystalloid sugar or glycogen, into the greatly more com- 

 plex colloid, starch (p. 154). These pyrenoids or plastids we 

 regard as chromatin masses, alike from their structural relation 

 to cell-nuclei, their stainability, their connection -with the 

 cell-nuclei (p. 128), and their mode of multiplication. 



But, as we pass to the higher groups of bacteria and of the 

 Blue-green Algae, increasing polarity in relation to the earth 



