ON THE STAGES OF EVOLUTION 215 



offspring, modified by environment, and again transmitted, 

 in turn, to a succeeding generation, with attributes, and 

 characteristics, secured, to perpetuate the species, and 

 maintain its ascendency, as an evolutionary instrument. 

 Transmitted, or inherited, nervine energy, which is here 

 equal, or equivalent, to vital energy, is the dynamic 

 agency and formative means by which lifeless matter is 

 converted into living protoplasm, fashioned into organic 

 form and endowed with separate, and independent, 

 existence, fitting it to perform its specific functions, as 

 a living unit, in the long life roll of organic forms. 

 That energy, while vitalising, and organising, the primordial 



FIG. 74. FIG. 75. 



FlG. 74. A CARTILAGE CELL OF THE SALAMANDER, SHOWING FINE 

 FILAMENTS IN THE PROTOPLASM. (Flemming.) 



FIG. 75. DIAGRAM OF AN ANIMAL CELL (WITH TWO NUCLEI). (Klein.) 



cell (Figs. 72, 73, 74, 75) protoplasm, is operated by 

 molecular nervine machinery, destitute of the proper 

 histological elements of a nervous system, but, neverthe- 

 less, by a system of dynamic production, storage and 

 distribution, absolutely effective in innervating, and 

 meeting the vital requirements of the unicellular 

 organism, and of the individual dynamic cell wants of 

 the communal cell organism (Figs. 76, 77), as it exists 

 in the human organism previous to the evolution of the 

 sympathetic nervous system, and as it exists in every 

 cell unit, of the communal cell organism, each of which 

 cells continues to be thus individually innervated 

 throughout its entire life-history. 



Nerve energy, or force, may, therefore, be, nay must 

 consist, so far as analogy warrants the statement, of a 



