CENTRE OF ELABORATION- 11 



cell. During this process they receive the 

 last touch that completes their formation 

 into protoplasm. Anterior to the nucleus 

 they have not yet become perfect proto- 

 plasm, and at the cell-wall they have ceased 

 to be protoplasm have become cellulose. 



The cell-nucleus is the centre of attraction 

 and elaboration, the seat of innate vital 

 activity, the vital point, the punctum saliens. 

 Whether there is here one of the " primordial 

 germs" of Darwin, 2 a "physiological unit" 

 of Spencer ; a single specialised molecule ; 

 a single endowed atom, or a speck of life 

 or spirit, we will not even conjecture. It 

 is undoubtedly the point of vital activity, 

 and here certainly resides the primum 

 mobile ; by Haeckel, called the " cell soul." 



Vital activity is not communicated, to 

 the cell by or from its environment, the 

 pabulum ; it is innate in the cell itself, 

 just as physical activity is innate in the 

 molecule of not-living matter. The special 

 kind of activity vegetable, animal, mus- 

 cular, nervous, etc., results from the 



2 PRIMORDIAL GERMS " The whole line of human ex- 

 perience, interpreted in the light of modern scientific 

 knowledge, compels the conclusion that the primordial 

 germs in which life on earth began, arose by the operation 

 of natural creative laws." DALLINGER, p. 403 [Italics, 



