NEW CONCEPTIONS IN SCIENCE 



crease in size, the cellular equilibrium has been 

 broken. This process, endlessly repeated through 

 long years, builds up from a single parent cell the 

 tall figure of the giraffe, the huge bulk of the whale, 

 the chalk-beds of England, or some vast reef of 

 coral in the Pacific. 



The discovery by the English chemist Hill that 

 the active enzyme of starch fermentation was re- 

 versible, the discovery by the German Emmerling 

 of a ferment which will undo the work of another, 

 give earnest of the day when, the mode of action of 

 the ferments being as well known as the working 

 of rennet in the making of cheese now, the ac- 

 tion of the cellular ferments may be reversed at 

 will; the fabric they have reared would go down 

 piece by piece, the separate parts shrink, coa- 

 lesce, decrease, until, perhaps, naught remained 

 save a formless clot of jelly-like stuff the jelly of 

 life. 



Are these but Faust dreams? No; rather a sim- 

 ple statement of fact. On a miniature scale, at 

 least one or two such instances are known. A 

 plantlike little affair, Campanularia, living and 

 developing normally in the water, undergoes an 

 amazing transformation simply upon being brought 

 into contact with some solid substance. First the 

 little buds or shoots along its extended arms or 

 branches begin to retract, and finally disappear; 



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