BIONOMICS 225 



Those related to the dissociation of radium may thus be com- 

 pared to such extreme cases of phosphorescence in the organic 

 world as in some Pyrosoma and Annelida, and of the explosive 

 discharge of electric (nerve) power as in the Torpedo and in 

 the Gymiiotus. In all cases of extreme radio-activity and of 

 phosphorescence, I believe it is the presence of impurities in 

 one form or another which is responsible for the sudden 

 disintegration of previously accumulated forces ; violent 

 electric discharges being symptomatic of the pathogenetic 

 utilisation of quondam physiological (symbiotic) forces. 



In-feeding or impregnation of animal tissue with 

 inorganic matter thus produces dissociative and generally 

 retrogressive effects, until even special organs may arise 

 appropriate to the continuous metamorphosis of erstwhile 

 symbiotically acquired (nerve) forces into antibiotic 

 (mechanical) forces. Apart from phosphorescence it is in 

 obligate parasites that the "explosive" behaviour of sex 

 strikingly testifies that a pathogenetic momentum of consider- 

 able force and beyond all control is reached. The concomitant 

 dependence on a surfeit of nitrogenous food shows that the 

 material for the support of the degeneracy, the "dynamite," 

 has to be abstracted predaceously from strenuous organisms 

 and at the expense of symbiotics. What new organs now arise 

 in furtherance of dishonest living are pathogenetically 

 contrived. 



Spencer thinks that " There is abundant evidence that the 

 sensation of taste is due to the chemical actions set up by 

 particles which find their way through the membrane covering 

 the nerve of taste ; for, as Prof. Graham points out, sapid 

 substances all belong to the class of crystalloids which are 

 able rapidly to permeate animal tissue, while colloids, which 

 cannot pass through animal tissue, are all insipid." 



Again we are thus face to face with the important distinc- 

 tion between crystalloids and colloids, the latter of which we 

 have seen to be possessed of distinct biological character, which 

 is also saying, in other words, that they have a specific 



