THE LIVING SUBSTANCE. 



119 



Besides this, they bud, and multiply by fission also in many 

 cases. 



As a class they have a habit of, or tendency to, actually con- 

 jugate, which must not be confused with the mere coalition 

 phenomena, for in this former case the nuclei of the individuals, 

 which may be two or more, are diffused for the time and then 

 again reorganized. These actions result after variable periods, 

 it has been observed, in reproductive phenomena, and so the 

 Filosa are open to the increased plasticity of destiny which 

 such a mingling of individual masses or substance seems to 

 produce in the substance within fixed limits. 



[108] To sum up the above remarks, my mind is drawn with 

 some force by the suitability in all ways of the filose protoplasts, 

 in habit as well as in form, for the evolution of a race of com- 

 pound and complexly differentiated substance masses, with 

 multiplied latent possibilities, all parts of which seem to retain 

 to greater or less extent the spinning habit. 



True Biological Standpoint. 



[109] But after all, whether we consider past forms as the 

 root of present forms, or these by themselves, the thing of 

 greatest moment to us is neither form nor structure in linked 

 gradation from age to age, but rather that of which all form, 

 all structure, are but the casting, the mould, the framework, 

 and the mask. It is the living substance as such, its fleeting 

 activities and their meaning which should concern us most. 



[no] Surely all the facts urge a somewhat changed stand- 

 point in biological research. We are not denied an ultimate 

 return to purely physical interpretations. These are not yet 

 pronounced impossible nor even improbable; but we are bidden 

 for the time to a physiological standpoint as more immediately 

 fruitful. That there is a physical machine seems now more 

 than ever certain, but that the machine within our present ken 

 is the wonder-working machine, seems less than ever predicable. 

 We are forced to see that the final automaton, if such there 

 be, must be allowed to be, within an incredibly minute mass, 

 almost infinitely self adaptive to innumerable contingencies. 



