ciiAr. xr The Elements of Structure 183 



marvellous than those which relate to dividing cells. From 

 Protozoa to man, and also in plants, the process is strik- 

 ingly uniform. The nucleus of the cell becomes more 

 active, the coil or network of threads which it contains is 

 undone and takes the new and more regular form of a 

 spindle or barrel. The division is most thorough, each of 

 the two daughter- cells getting an accurate half of the 

 original nucleus. "Recent investigators, moreover, assert 

 that from certain centres in the cell-substance an influence 

 is exerted on the nuclear threads, and they talk of an archo- 

 plasm within the protoplasm, and of marked individuality of 

 behaviour in the nuclear threads. 



From the cell as a unit element we penetrate to the 

 protoplasm which makes it what it is. Within this we 

 discern an intricate network, within this, special centres of 

 force " attractive spheres " and " central corpuscles," or 

 an " archoplasm " within the protoplasm ! We study the 

 nucleus, first as a simple unit which divides, years after- 

 wards as composed of a network or coil of nuclear threads 

 which seem ever to become more and more marvellous, 

 " behaving like little organisms." We split these up 

 into " microsomata," and so on, and so on. But we do 

 not catch the life of the cell, we cannot locate it, we cannot 

 give an account of the mechanics of cell-division. It is a 

 mystery of life. After all our analysis we have to confess 

 that the cell, or the protoplasm, or the archoplasm, or the 

 chromatin threads of the nucleus, or the " microsomata " 

 which compose them, baffle our analysis ; they behave as 

 they do because they are alive. Were we omniscient 

 chemists, such as Laplace imagined in one of his specula- 

 tions, and knew the secret of protoplasm, how its touch 

 upon the simpler states of matter is powerful to give them 

 life, we should but have completed a small part of those 

 labours that even now lie waiting us ; what further investi- 

 gations will present themselves we cannot tell. 



