486 ON CONCRETIONS, SPICULES, [ch. 



a pile of oranges becomes definite, both in outward form and 

 inward structural arrangement, without the play of any specific 

 directive force. But while our conceptions of the tactical arrange- 

 ment of crystalline molecules remain the same as before, and our 

 hypotheses of "modes of packing" or of "space-lattices" remain 

 as useful as ever for the definition and explanation of the 

 molecular arrangements, an entirely new theoretical conception 

 is introduced when we find such space- lattices maintained in 

 what has hitherto been considered the molecular freedom of a 

 hquid field ; and we are constrained, accordingly, to postulate 

 a specific molecular force, or " Gestaltungskraft " (not unlike 

 Kepler's " facultas for matrix "), to account for the phenomenon. 



Now just as some sort of specific "Gestaltungskraft" had 

 been of old the deus ex machina accounting for all crystalline 

 phenomena {gnara totius geometrice, et in ea exercita, as Kepler 

 said), and as such an hypothesis, after being dethroned and 

 repudiated, has now fought its way back and has made good its 

 right to be heard, so it may be also in biology. We begin by an 

 easy and general assumption of specific properties, by which each 

 organism assumes its own specific form; we learn later (as it is 

 the purpose of this book to shew) that throughout the whole 

 range of organic morphology there are innumerable phenomena of 

 form which are not peculiar to living things, but which are more 

 or less simple manifestations of ordinary physical law. But every 

 now and then we come to certain deep-seated signs of proto- 

 plasmic symmetry or polarisation, which seem to lie beyond the 

 reach of the ordinary physical forces. It by no means follows 

 that the forces in question are not essentially physical forces, more 

 obscure and less famihar to us than the rest ; and this would seem 

 to be the crucial lesson for us to draw from Lehmann's surprising 

 and most beautiful discovery. For Lehmann seems actually to 

 have demonstrated, in non-hving, chemical bodies, the existence 

 of just such a determinant, just such a "Gestaltungskraft," as 

 would be of infinite help to us if we might postulate it for the 

 explanation (for instance) of our Radiolarian's axial symmetry. 

 But further than this we cannot go ; for such analogy as we seem 

 to see in the Lehmann phenomenon soon evades us, and refuses 

 to be pressed home. Not only is it the case, as we have already 



