BIOTIC STRUCTURE AXD BIOTIC ENERGY 17 



induced by varying external stimuli of physical and chemical 

 nature. 



The sequences in the series of ocean plankton dawning forth 

 with the season's changes also wonderfully illustrate the cyclic 

 activities of all living things. 



Again, the whole history of the evolution of the complex animal 

 from the two parent cells in sexual reproduction is a study in varying 

 cyclic activity. The colloidal matter in the fertilised cell is endowed 

 with peculiar energy properties as a result of which the potential or 

 . intensity factor of its energy rises to such a level that there becomes 

 induced an alteration in the discharges of energy. 



To prevent further rise in the potential or pressure factor as 

 the total energy goes on increasing the capacity factor must be 

 increased. This accommodation is made by the cell dividing into 

 two daughter cells, under the influence of the high potential factor 

 of the biotic energy. In each of the daughter cells the potential 

 factor has now fallen, but, accompanying growth, the potential 

 again rises, and the process of cell division at a certain point must be 

 repeated, so giving rise to four cells. In the complicated inter- 

 play between this peculiar energy form characteristic of living cells 

 and the cry stallo- colloidal aggregates composing the cell structure, 

 there are provided those potential variations which give rise to the 

 different alterations in structure and function of the living matter 

 as the animal body is fashioned out. 



The causation of the marvellous changes by which an organisa- 

 tion so complex as that of a human being arises from the conjugation 

 of two minute cells is at present hidden from our knowledge, 

 and even the details of the colloidal chemistry of the simplest form 

 of cell division. Yet we can safely say that there are two primary 

 essential things first, a very specific colloidal structure differing in 

 its first details from the germ cell of the most nearly allied species 

 of animal; secondly, this colloidal mass must be in meta- stable 

 equilibrium, and its component parts not at rest, but possessed 

 of a type of energy which we may term biotic energy to show that 

 it is typical of such living structure, and possesses its own set of 

 characteristics. This biotic energy receives, as the organism grows, 

 additions by transformation into it of chemical energy derived from 

 the nutrition, and possesses potential and capacity factors like other 

 forms of energy. 



One form of structure, arrangement, and subdivision of the living 



2 



