374 CELL INTELLIGENCE THE CAUSE OF EVOLUTION 



where it is needed. Mr. Binet has the following to say 

 about this : 



"To illustrate, it was at one time conceded that the 

 phenomena of resorption and nutrition were explainable 

 by diffusion and endosmosis ; Dutrochet, upon his discov- 

 ery of endosmosis imagined even that he had discovered 

 the principle of life. At the present time we know that 

 the walls of the intestines do not in any wise act like the 

 inanimate membrane used in experiments in endosmosis. 

 They are covered with epithelial cells, each of which is an 

 organism endowed with complex properties. The proto- 

 plasm of these cells lays hold of the food by an act of 

 prehension exactly as the ciliate Infusoria and other uni- 

 cellular organisms do, that lead an independent life. In 

 the intestines of cold-blooded animals, the cells emit pro- 

 longations, which seize the minute drops of fatty matter 

 and carry them into the protoplasm of the cell, convey 

 them thence into the chylifactive ducts. There is still 

 another mode of absorption of fatty matter, met with 

 among cold-blooded as well as warm-blooded animals. 

 The lymphatic cells pass out from the adenoid tissue, 

 which contains them, so that upon arriving at the surface 

 of the intestines, they sieze the particles of fatty matter 

 there present and, laden with their prey, make their way 

 back to the lymphatics." 



It requires just as much skill and intelligence to select 

 the required material from the stomach as ordered by the 

 cells in other parts of your body as it does to give the 

 orders for the material. The cells in the stomach must 

 be just as intelligent as the cells in your spine or head 

 that give the orders for material with which to build hair 

 or the callous in your hand. It is clear that when the 

 cells begin building the plant or animal from which they 

 came they must have in their mind ideas or a mental pic- 



