302 Dynamic Theory. 



tions they repel ; and this applies whether the currents are straight or in 

 circles or coils. The manner in which currents influence bodies is not 

 the same for all. A current may form a magnet which will attract cer- 

 tain bodies and repel others. The same magnet which attracts iron, 

 nickel, cobalt, manganese, oxygen, &c. , will repel antimony, bismuth, 

 phosphorus, sulphur, sodium, nitrogen, carbonic dioxide, water, starch, 

 sugar, bread, apple, blood, beef, alcohol, and many others. In addi- 

 tion to the recognized electrical or magnetic action there is chemical at- 

 traction, which is regarded by many chemists as a form of polar force 

 akin to, if not identical with, magnetism. 



We see in these various phases of polar energy the ability to com- 

 municate to the materials which are made to enter into the composition 

 of the cells, all the movements they make, both before and after their 

 organization. We see the cells constructed by the aggregation of par- 

 ticles from without, until a certain size is reached ; presumably a size 

 which, under the conditions, no longer admits^ of the proper access of 

 oxygen to the central part of the cell. Thereupon, from some cause or 

 other, repulsion arises between the two halves of the nucleus, which also 

 involves the rest of the cell and ends by splitting it in two. The de- 

 cisiveness and finality of this separation vary greatly in the cases of dif- 

 ferent classes of cells. In some, the pieces instantly become reattached 

 and remain together to form a continuous body of skin, muscle or other 

 tissue, or they may remain separate and form the whole of a simple, 

 single-celled organism, like a diatom ; or the pieces resulting from the 

 split may be incompetent to reunite with each other and so drift about 

 till they come within the sphere of attraction of a foreign cell with 

 which they can unite. These last represent the sexual cells. The first 

 class named are usually alike in size and appearance, and the energy 

 which operates upon them first augments, then splits, then reunites the 

 pieces, and then repeats the operation. In the second case, that of 

 the diatom, there appear to be but two stages ; the energy augments, 

 then splits, then repeats. These are two varieties of asexual reproduc- 

 tion, and the cells created by both varieties are alike in size, and the 

 first sort are alike in polarity and joined by mutual attraction or united 

 by a bond of connective protoplasm. The compound body thus formed 

 may be the whole of a small organism or only one definite part of a 

 large one. The young diatoms are likewise alike, but they may be sup- 

 posed to be of a neutral or sluggish magnetic constitution; that is with- 

 out affinity for each other. 



The sexual cells, in their most elementary form, must be alike, as 

 two diatoms, yet with an attraction for each other more intimate than 

 that mentioned above, as uniting the cells of a tissue ; for their union 

 becomes so intimate as to form a single cell out of two, before any 



