100 WHAT IS LIFE ? 



bilities lie dormant in that semi-fluid globule. Let a 

 moderate supply of warmth reach its watery cradle, 

 and the plastic matter undergoes changes so rapid and 

 yet so steady and purposelike in their succession, that 

 one can only compare them to those operated by a 

 skilled modeller upon a formless lump of clay. As 

 with an invisible trowel, the mass is divided and sub- 

 divided into smaller and smaller portions, until it is 

 reduced to an aggregation of granules not too large to 

 build withal the finest fabrics of the nascent organism. 

 And, then, it is as if a delicate finger traced out the line to 

 be occupied by the spinal column, and moulded the con- 

 tour of the body ; pinching up the head at one end, the 

 tail at the other, and fashioning flank and limb into 

 due salamandrine proportions, in so artistic a way, that, 

 after watching the process hour by hour, one is almost 

 involuntarily possessed by the notion, that some more 

 subtle aid to vision than an achromatic, would show the 

 hidden artist, with his plan before him, striving with 

 skilful manipulation to perfect his work. 



" As life advances, the young amphibian ranges the 

 waters, the terror of his insect contemporaries, not only 

 are the nutritious particles supplied by its prey, by the 

 addition of which to its frame growth takes place, laid 

 down, each in its proper spot, and in such due propor- 

 tion to the rest, as to reproduce the form, the colour, and 



out.' The surroundings of an organism ' ex-cite ' its specially ex- 

 citable parts, and the organism moves to or from its su rroundings, 

 or registers an impression which will modify its future movements." 

 (Idem, p. 291.) 



And so also can quicksilver be excited. Electrify, under suitable 

 conditions, masses of quicksilver, and the masses give movements very 

 much like the living amoeba does ! 



