206 HEREDITY. 



natural order suggest their own explanation. While 

 we listen only to facts which speak for themselves, 

 we are on firm ground. 



1. Many of the physical organisms of the lower 

 forms of life propagate themselves by self-division. 



2. In a self-divided organism there is in the two 

 halves physical identity. 



Suppose that we have here [drawing a figure on 

 the blackboard] what Hackel calls a Moneron, one 

 of the lowest types of life, an animal of irregular 

 shape, a mass of protoplasm. It moves. It feeds 

 itself. It grows. It has life. After it has grown 

 to its natural size, it constricts itself in the middle 

 [illustrating on the blackboard], and finally falls into 

 two portions. Self-division like this is the simplest 

 form of self-multiplication of organisms. There ap- 

 pears to be concerned here just that mysterious prop- 

 erty which a living mass of bioplasm exhibits when 

 we see it under the microscope throw out a promon- 

 tory, which becomes detached at last, and then, as it 

 takes up nutriment, goes on enlarging according to 

 the law which governs its parent. 



The supposition is that the mass of bioplasm is 

 homogeneous, or of the same qualities throughout. 

 The promontory it projects will be physically of the 

 same qualities with the parent mass! When that 

 promontory breaks off, there will be in the island 

 the qualities it had as a promontory. Therefore, be- 

 tween the island and the original mass there will be 

 physical identity. So when an organism, consisting 

 of a homogeneous mass of bioplasm, multiplies itself 



