36 THE SIMPLEST FORMS OF LIFE 



this; and we go no further for the explanation, but wait 

 until organic chemistry has given us an adequate conception 

 of plasm. 



Our microbe increases in size, as it takes matter unceas- 

 ingly into its little bulk. The fresh atoms or molecules are 

 built up into the plasm by chemical affinity Sir Oliver 

 Lodge gives an admirable account of this in his last chapter 

 and the circumference of the tiny globule swells out from 

 its centre. When a certain size is reached the body slowly 

 changes its shape from round to oval. The old centre 

 seems unable to hold the little mass together. A new 

 centre is formed (an invisible centre of attraction) in each 

 half of the oval. It lengthens slowly, sinks in a little round 

 the thick centre, like a drop of oil or ink that divides into 

 two, grows more and more constricted in the middle. At 

 last the two halves hang together by a thin cord of plasm. 

 They slowly fall away, the last connection disappears, and 

 there are two microbes instead of one. Each begins the 

 life-story da capo. 



This is the typical life of the lowest living things. They 

 absorb matter, swell, and fall into two. Must we at once 

 abandon all hope of a natural explanation of such beings, 

 and appeal to an immaterial world ? It would surely be a 

 very poor repetition of the old fallacy that saw invisible 

 spirits at work in every storm and every crash of thunder. 

 We have learned by a thousand disillusions that it is a 

 fallacy to discard natural agencies the moment we are faced 

 with phenomena that are in any degree mysterious. Already 

 competent students claim to have made artificially in the 



