THE STORY OF THE BODY'S CONSTITUTION 11 



a colonial organism. It masks its compound nature 

 under the guise of a single living personality, but 

 the Ego which every man represents in himself is a 

 compound thing, and can only be maintained as a 

 single personality through the direct co-operation of 

 the millions of different cells of which his body is 

 built up. Such a broad view of matters serves to 

 convey to us an adequate idea of the constitution of 

 the living frame. If we extend our glance through 

 the animal and plant worlds at large, we may 

 discover that the same remarks apply to all other 

 living organisms. The very lowest animals and 

 plants consist each of a single cell. The animalcule 

 in the pool and the yeast plant respectively illustrate 

 this fact. When we advance beyond these lowest 

 organisms we find that the single-cell state gives 

 rise to the many-celled condition. Hence the lowest 

 animals and plants are termed unicellular, whilst 

 other and higher forms are termed multicellular. 

 On this basis we may recognise that man stands at 

 the head of the multicellular animals, not the least 

 interesting fact involved in this statement being that 

 already noted which teaches us that our wonderful 

 frame arises, like that of all other animals and plants, 

 from a single cell. It is, in fact, the wonderful mul- 

 tiplication of this single cell we term the ovum or 

 egg into all the other cells of the body, which 

 constitutes one of the most remarkable facts of 

 living existence. 



THE BODY'S CHEMICAL COMPOSITION. A word 

 regarding the chemical composition of the body may 

 be added here. There are to be discerned in man's 

 body some fourteen elements, all of them common to 

 the world at large. They are represented by oxygen, 

 carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen, lime, potash, soda, 



