306 BIOLOGICAL PHYSICS 



continuance indefinitely, or so long as the conditions ot 

 such cell life are maintained. It, therefore, goes without 

 saying, that every such cell possesses life, with the 

 implied power of developing, and perpetuating, itself (see 

 Fig. 1 1 8), and that this possession secures, along favour- 

 ing lines, and under suitable environment, a continuous 

 succession of cell units, and communal cell organisms. 

 This must be held as applying to cells as individuals, 

 and communities, innervated by the sympathetic nervous 

 system, and not to cells belonging to the systemic 

 neuronal units, and communities, which latter, do not 

 repeat themselves, or become subservient, to the law of 

 kariokinesis a cellular condition, marking a new, and 

 absolutely unique, distinction, in the role of cell 

 life, within the higher animal life organisms, or those 

 whose innervation is dual. The cell life, or energy, is 

 sui generis, and cannot be replaced by, or continued as, 

 any other known form, or forms, of energy, and, hence, 

 must be regarded, as synonymous with that form of 

 energy known as, vital. Each cell is vitalised, and, so 

 to speak, innervated, minus a developed nervous system, 

 by this energy, along, it may be, molecular lines, and 

 in virtue of the existence, or provision, in the cell contents, 

 of circulatory facilities, or molecular pathways, for the 

 play of vital energy, or force ; each cell, moreover, by 

 the exercise of its inherent formative powers, or impulses, 

 acting through, or by, the agency, of its vital energy, 

 on its protoplasmic elements, perpetuates itself by, gem- 

 mation, mitosis, or kariokinesis, transmitting to its 

 succeeding, or resultant, cell, or cells, a sufficient moiety, 

 or portion, of itself, with all the vital, characteristics, 

 and qualities, to fit it, or them, to grow, and, in turn, 

 to repeat the process of perpetuative growth. The vital 

 processes, including the evolution, and circulation, of 

 vital energy, involved in the primitive form of cell 

 growth, and perpetuation, may be described as diffuse, 

 or only molecularly stranded^ and determined^ and is charac- 

 teristic of only the earliest stage of growth of the human 

 fecundated ovum, the succeeding stage, or where cell 

 fission, and increase of cell bodies, has begun, necessitating 

 the provision of the rudiments of nervous arrangement, 



