THE NUCLEUS AND GROWTH 



207 



that the higher vegetative powers of the cell are intimately 

 associated with nuclear matter, it is in the nucleus that we must 

 locate these biophores, and we must therefore regard the cyto- 

 plasm as composed of subordinate matter, and as having what 

 must be termed subvital functions. 



Now, the simplest conception that we can form of these 

 biophores — and even in the very lowest forms of life they must 

 be singularly complex — is that they are rings or rings of rings, 

 carbon- and nitrogen-containing and of the benzol type. The 

 only satisfactory conception of growth, by multiplication of 

 these molecules, is that the 

 pre-existing rings possess un- 

 satisfied affinities, and attract 

 side -chains of various ions, 

 simple and compound, from 

 the surrounding media, and 

 that these become grouped in 

 a manner identical with the 

 grouping present in the pre- 

 existing biophore. In other 

 words, we must regard the 

 building of the new biophoric 

 molecules as obeying laws of 

 the same order as those which 

 determine the building of ions 

 out of a solution to form crystals of a particular form of salt, but 

 with this difference, that so far we have no evidence of biophores 

 becoming formed anew save under the influence of pre-existing 

 biophores — we know no case of spontaneous generation. Thus, 

 growth demands affinities and side-chain formation on the part of 

 the biophores. As with evolution the biophoric molecules have 

 become more complex, we would suppose that ions and radicals 

 have become attracted and attached not in ring arrangement 

 but in loose series and loose connexion with the biophores. As 

 in growth new biophoric molecules are formed in association 

 with the pre-existing, the result is an inevitable tendency towards 

 the grouping of the biophores in a central mass surrounded by a 

 zone of other attracted matter. With the development of such 

 a complex system the biophoric molecules proper are no longer 

 in direct and immediate relationship with the outer medium ; 



