206 ON VARIABILITY AND ADAPTATION 



between various albumens and between albuminous and fatty 

 acids. 1 As regards their importance in this connexion we 

 would only call attention to Preston Kyes's remarkable observa- 

 tions upon the part played by lecithin as complement, or linkage 

 body, between certain serum proteids and cell proteins and 

 snake venom. It is interesting to note how almost simultaneously 

 during the last few months independent workers in Germany, 

 France, the United States and England, approaching the subject 

 from widely different points of view, have converged to the same 

 conclusion — that the lipoids are of singular importance to the 

 cell and in relationship to metabolic processes. We seem at 

 the threshold and in its shadow, and see already the light within. 

 But here at the threshold I must stop. 



The Nucleus and Growth 



Before closing, however, there is a question which I doubt 

 not has arisen in your minds, and one which must be answered. 

 " You arrogate," it will be said, " all these powers to the nucleus. 

 What part is played by the cytoplasm ? " To this I would 

 answer that, passing further and further backwards in our 

 endeavour to comprehend what is life, if we believe in living 

 matter and that vital phenomena are the expression of the 

 effects of physical and chemical forces acting upon that matter, 

 then our ultimate conception of life must be that it is the function, 

 or the sum of functions, of a special order of molecules. For 

 convenience, we would term these ultimate molecules of living 

 matter biophores. However much we strain our imagination it 

 would seem impossible to conceive the existence within the cell 

 of two orders of molecules of widely different type, but of equal 

 value, which, by their interaction, initiate vital processes. We 

 must premise that there is in each form of life one primal order 

 of living matter. If so, the biophores must be contained either 

 in the nuclear matter or in the cytoplasm ; and as we have shown 



1 The mucins would seem to represent a parallel group of carbohydrate- 

 proteid compounds, and the histological observations of Steinhaus, Maximow, 

 and others demonstrate most clearly that nuclear matter is concerned in their 

 development : indeed, in goblet cells, according to Steinhaus, there is a total 

 conversion of the old nucleus of the cell into mucinogen. The figures given by 

 this observer are of the same order as those afforded by Ewing of nuclear changes 

 in epithelial cells in connexion with vaccinia and variola. 



