74 BIOLOGICAL LECTURES. 



many reasons why the present speaker holds that all purely 

 morphological work is one-sided, and incapable of dealing with 

 the deeper problems of biology. In the same way, physiology 

 alone is equally incapable of dealing with the great general 

 problems in biology. Neither of the two disciplines alone can 

 ever, by any stretch of imagination, command the power to 

 produce a tJieory of life. Such an expectation is simply 

 fatuous. 



The many other dynamical phenomena, especially the singular 

 manner in which the nucleus of an Amoeba protcus is caused 

 to oscillate back and forth within its body within certain limits, 

 all take place in accord with the views above developed. For 

 example, the curious lateral flow of the plasma of Amoeba proteus 

 when in a fully extended condition, along the sides of the 

 body on either side of its posterior and middle thirds, may be 

 explained by the physical tendency of this part of the organism 

 to adhere to the substratum upon which it is moving. This 

 lateral spreading does not take place at its " anterior " end 

 because here the influx of molecules from behind is taking 

 place so rapidly that this spreading due to adhesion has not 

 yet had time to take place. This spreading due to adhesion 

 causes the central current to be narrowed and elevated so that 

 the discoidal nucleus is lifted and rolled along on its edge in 

 this narrow elevated part of the body of the organism as if 

 passing through a tunnel with its sides wider than its floor. 

 Rolled along in this way through this narrow passage by the 

 vortical current of plasma, the nucleus is finally arrested by 

 contact of its edge with the molecular boundary wall of the 

 organism, and is thus automatically kept from being bodily 

 rolled to the outside of the plasma of the organism. Reaching 

 a certain point at the "anterior" end of the mass of plasma, 

 it also falls over on its side, wedged between the roof and floor 

 of the mass of plasma of which it forms a part. It is thus 

 prevented from passing out of the organism with the vortical 

 current that must now flow past it and on forward to continually 

 form anew the "anterior" end of this singular being that is 

 thus continually turning itself inside outward in front and 

 outside inward behind. 



