CELL-LIFE. 99 



number of associated cells, will repeat as a 

 whole, in its generative process what this, its 

 smallest vital constituent is doing, undoubt- 

 edly with great variety. Still this cell-indi- 

 vidual is its prototypal unit, no.t simply ideal 

 but actual and visible, yea creative; we may 

 deem it the miniature pattern after which 

 Creation works in small and large, reproduc- 

 ing it not only in the microscopic cell itself, 

 but in the hugest of all animals now known 

 or that have ever been known among the mon- 

 sters of the geologic ages, the whale measur- 

 ing eighty feet and more in length. Its bil- 

 lions of cells are doing, each in its own life- 

 process, quite what it as total animal is doing. 

 Accordingly in the cell we observe individ- 

 ual generation, birth, maturity, age and 

 death. It goes the round of life from start 

 to finish; indeed, just that is what makes it 

 alive. It has the primordial vital process, at 

 least as far as our present knowledge ex- 

 tends, even if the cell has been supposed to 

 consist of still more minute cellules beyond 

 the reach of the most powerful microscope 

 a conjecture, by the way, not at all improb- 

 able. But just now the cell may well be 

 deemed the pivot upon which the Biocosmos 

 turns. It is the germinal point of every liv- 

 ing thing in the universe; it is the ultimate 

 vital constituent, out of which all other forms 



