THE FOUNTAIN OF CHANGE 245 



germ-cell the creature, we maintain, in its one- 

 cell phase of being play a more active part (like 

 a Foraminifer artist building a shell of Synaptid 

 anchors) and experiment in self-differentiation? 

 Dr. Gates has a stern scientific mood and does 

 not often let himself go in the region of speculation, 

 but he does not forget that the organism is alive! 

 " Just as an alpine climber dangling over a chasm 

 may, by changing his hold, swing himself on to a 

 shelf from which he can make a fresh start in some 

 other direction, so we may think of the organism 

 trying many unconscious experiments in its off- 

 spring, some of which are hurled by the gravita- 

 tional effect of natural selection into the abyss of 

 extinction, while others with a more fortunate 

 turn rest on a ledge of safety whence new essays 

 of variability begin." It is true that the author 

 comes back to the chemical and structural com- 

 plexity of the protoplasm and its unique irrita- 

 bility, but we wish that he had dwelt longer on his 

 picture of the organism as a climber. It may have 

 no fixed purpose of getting to the top, yet there may 

 be inseparable from it a restless experimenting in 

 self-expression, bearing in the germ-cell the same 

 relation to the insurgent efforts of the full-grown 

 creature that the tentatives of dreamland bear to the 

 achievements of open-eyed endeavor. 



