174 VITALISM AND SCHOLASTICISM 



parts, which appear like white spheres, in fact 

 the describer states that when he first saw this 

 condition he came to the conclusion that the 

 clavellina was either dead or on the way to 

 death. It was not so, however, for though 

 the creature remains or may remain in this 

 condition for two or three weeks, at last the 

 day comes when it begins to clear and to 

 stretch and then after the end of two or three 

 days it is found that amorphous mass has once 

 more become a complete ascidian with gill- 

 basket and intestinal sac. It has become a 

 perfectly new organism which has no continuity 

 with the parts of the earlier organisation 

 though it has with its material. Its gill-basket 

 is not a derivative of the old one; it is very 

 much smaller and has fewer and smaller open- 

 ings. What has happened is that the old 

 organised gill-basket has returned to an in- 

 different substance and then, from this indif- 

 ferent substance on embryological lines, a new 

 smaller individual has been constituted. But 

 this is not the whole story, for it is not merely 

 the isolated gill-basket which can restore itself 

 by means of this roundabout process, but after 

 having isolated the basket, it can be itself 

 divided either into an upper and lower portion 

 or into an anterior and a posterior bit and 

 each of these portions will then go through the 



