PROTOPLASMIC MOVEMENT. 413 



and such like), is easily explained from the above-stated prin- 

 ciples.^ 



2. Origin of Processes. 

 If in a protoplasmic mass which through excitation has 

 become spherical, or, to speak more generally, has become so 

 reduced as to expose the least possible external surface, all the 

 inotagmata become simultaneously relaxed, after the removal 

 of the excitation, a visible change in the form of the whole 

 mass will not necessarily take place. As a general rule such 

 change will only take place when large groups of inotagmata 

 parallel to one another become partially relaxed only, or still 

 more if they do not relax simultaneously or do so with unequal 

 force. The spherical condition of a naked protoplasmic body 

 can thus correspond as well with complete repose (relaxation) 

 as with maximal excitation (contraction of inotagmata). In 

 addition to the lengthening (relaxation) of definitely arranged 

 inotagma-groups which may very easily lead to the formation 

 of fine pseudopodia, processes may be produced in various 

 other ways. One of the most common is the case described 

 by O. F. Miiller in Amcebse and Amoeboid masses, viz. the very 



• A word must here be devoted to Kiihne's experiments upon so-called 

 artificial muscles (' Unters. ii. d. Protoplasma, &c.,' p. 81), as it claims an 

 importance from a zoophysiological point of view which it would most highly 

 deserve, if the explanation given to it by its discoverer were correct. 

 Before we can concur with this, however, we must have proof, which we have 

 not yet had, 1, that the protoplasmic powder mixed with water and placed in 

 a beetle's intestine develops again to a living excitable protoplasm — a revivi- 

 fication which, according to the best authors, more often fails than not ; and 

 2, that if this first condition be assumed to be fulfilled, all the little lumps of 

 protoplasm fuse into a single organically united mass, for without this the 

 " artificial muscle " is nothing more than an aggregate of independent Amoebae 

 lying against one another, which would not perceptibly change its form 

 on the simultaneous contraction of all these elements. But the experi- 

 ments showed that the fulfilment of this condition also was an exceedingly 

 improbable event. As, in addition to this, the contents of the " muscle " 

 when emptied out consisted partly of single rounded masses, partly of pale 

 vesicles and free granules, out of whicb no further movements were to be 

 produced, it appears to be fully proved that neither the first nor the second 

 of these conditions was fulfilled. 



