ORIGIN OF LIFE 43 



whit nearer to the solution of the problem of the first 

 origin of protoplasm. 



But besides protoplasm there is the ever-present 

 nucleus to be considered. Even if the primordial proto- 

 plasmic being contained no nucleus — as the bacteria are 

 at present supposed by some to be without it ^ — how did 

 it arise? Every living being, animal or plant above 

 those most degraded forms of fungi cannot be formed at 

 all without one. 



The nucleus is now known to be a highly complicated 

 body, and passes through an elaborate series of evolu- 

 tions, when undergoing division for the making of new 

 cells. It is never known to arise spontaneously in 

 protoplasm, but always from pre-existing ones. Hence, 

 whenever the first protoplasm was formed, it must either 

 have had a nucleus within it, or very soon acquired one ; 

 otherwise Evolution, as we know it, could never have 

 proceeded at all. 



It is in the behaviour of the nucleus that we first begin 

 to see marked directivity in the evolutions of its structure. 

 The spirem stage or chain with chromosomes divides 

 into a definite number, these arrange themselves in a 

 definite manner, in a certain place. They then undergo 

 certain changes, certain tracks are prepared like single rails 

 on a spindle, each travels along a line of the spindle, half 

 of them going one way, half the other, till the individual 

 parts of the two groups of bodies meet and fuse, forming 

 two fresh "daughter" nuclei one at one end, the other at 

 the other end or "pole". After these daughter nuclei 

 are formed, the second act of the drama begins, and a 

 cell-plate is laid down between the two, which gradually 

 extends from one side to the other of the original cell. 



^ They contain chromosomes, thought to be either the beginning of a 

 nucleus or degradations. 



