208 Causes and Course of Organic Evolution 



as a result of that condensation phase or state of energy that 

 we have called the cognitic. Originating amongst the higher 

 autotrophic Bacteria, later and more perfectly amongst the 

 derivative Blue-green Algae and the primitive Protozoa, 

 this constituent has since persisted as a hereditary portion 

 of every higher cell up to man. It is therefore the next most 

 ancient constituent of the living cell in succession to the proto- 

 ])lasm, and may have evolved during the later mid-archsean age. 



Wliile amongst the nucleate cells of such simple plants as 

 tJie conjugate algae and fungi any or even every cell of an indi- 

 vidual may become a sexual cell, in higher plants and in ani- 

 mals higher than the Acaryozoa, definite sexual cells are early 

 se])arated off from others that in time decay. Such sexual 

 cells, possibly by migration of hormones, of complex peptones, 

 and other materials along profoundly complex but definitely 

 localized lines of energy flow, lock up or condense within them- 

 selves the entire set of characters of two parental organisms. 

 But alike in evolutionary origin and in historic continuity they 

 appear to be less immortal than is the chromatin as such, and 

 greatly less so than the protoplasm. For irritability and nutri- 

 tional capacity must always precede reproductive effort. 



The still more complex substance neuratin, that the writer 

 would regard as typical of most invertebrate and of verte- 

 brate ganglionic cells, seems to have segregated off from the 

 protoplasm or chromatin, or even more likely as a conjoint 

 })roduct of both. We have suggested that its first beginnings 

 seem to be traceable (p. 223) amongst liigher Protozoa like 

 the Ha?moflagellata and Infusoria; that it gradually became 

 concentrated in special elements — the nerv^e cells — and that 

 such appear in simplest conditions amongst the Coelenterata 

 and Echinodermata. Evolutionarily and historically then it 

 is the newest and highest of the cell elements, that probably 

 segregated by slow degrees during late archaean age, and has 

 now reached its most complex amount and expression in super- 

 man. 



The writer will not attempt in this chapter to discuss a 

 possi])ly more comi)lex energy and ether aggregation that in 



