278 ORIGIN OF LIVING CENTRES. 



direction y/w;/ centre to circumference, while there is no doubt 

 whatever that the inanimate matter which is about to become 

 living passes in the opposite direction (seep. 212); or, in 

 other words, the inanimate matter passes into the centre of 

 a particle which already lives, becomes living, and then moves 

 outwards. The flow of the non-living matter is centripetal, 

 and the movement of the living matter is centrifugal. But 

 both sets of movements are to be accounted for by the cen- 

 trifugal tendency of the bioplasm particles ; for it is obvious 

 that as these, free to move in fluid, thus tend to move from 

 a centre, a current in the opposite direction must be induced. 

 Such tendency to move from a centre, it would seem, must 

 be due to a force very different from that which controls the 

 movements of inanimate matter. Moreover, cosmic force 

 influences masses of the largest magnitude and of infinite 

 minuteness, through varying distance ; but the vital force 

 can only exert its sway when the distance is infinitely minute ; 

 and it would seem that, in fact, the vital influence can only 

 affect non-living matter when it has arrived at the very centre 

 of a living particle far within the most central point of a 

 centre conceivable by us. 



The change which occurs in the living centre is probably 

 sudden and abrupt. The life flashes, as it were, into the 

 inanimate particles and they live. There can be no gradual 

 change here. The progression from the inorganic to the 

 living is not to be traced step by step. The change is in- 

 stantaneous. 



How these new centres originate, as for instance in the 

 ovum (see PL IV, page 2 1 8), is a question of the utmost im- 

 portance. It cannot be proved that they are in any way 

 formed by the aggregation of particles derived from distant 



