208 Misdirected Efforts to Conjugation in Spirogyra. 



to be mixed together as they were collected " (PI. XIV. A . 

 figs. 1-3). • 



The conjugation of Spirogyra &c. affords an instance in 

 which the " primordial cell/' after having become incarcerated 

 within the apparently lifeless sheath of the filament, can soften 

 the latter at a particular point so as to enable itself to escape 

 from its prison and- mingle its green or gonimic contents with 

 those of another cell of a like kind similarly circumstanced, 

 to form the " resting spore." It is one of the innumerable 

 examples of the instinct of two portions of the living proto- 

 plasm, when apparently shut off from all communication with 

 the exterior, and in themselves but an inconceivably delicate 

 aqueous film, being able, as in pairing for conjugation, to recog- 

 nize the presence and proximity of each other, preparatory to 

 synchronously softening the necessary points of their cell- 

 walls, and by mutual tubulation to produce a continuous 

 channel of communication between the two cavities, through 

 which the contents of one cell are able to be mixed with 

 those of the other for the purpose mentioned. 



I have stated " apparently lifeless sheath," because, al- 

 though the filaments of Spirogyra present in their sheath a 

 substance which may be compared to horn in the animal 

 kingdom, yet, if thrown confusedly into a basin of water 

 at night, they will, by the next morning, have arranged 

 themselves as parallelly as well-combed hair, while all this 

 is effected by what has been termed " blind instinct," 

 whose manifestations are familiar to us as being as common 

 in the animal as in the vegetable kingdom, in the lowest 

 state of living organic matter with which we are cognizant as 

 in the highest development, in the act of the cuckoo which 

 goes across the " seas " to the land of its parents a month 

 after they have left our shores, as in the apparently chaotic 

 mucus of the rose-shoot, which in a short time comes forth in 

 the shape of a definite bunch of flowers. Yet who can tell 

 what this u blind instinct " is? 



Let us go further, and take the human germ, which at first 

 is but an extremely minute cell containing a particle of this 

 protoplasm, out of which all the organs of the full-grown 

 being are developed, and then how punily does our " mental 

 power " compare with this " blind instinct," which has not 

 only developed the organ, viz. the brain, by which our mental 

 power is manifested, but has limited that power to its own 

 requirements — thus not only enabling us to see that our 

 comprehension is finite, but that there is still something 

 beyond which we cannot comprehend, i. e. the infinite. Nor 

 can we help inferring, if the development of the human germ 



