TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION D. 833 
produce the vital phenomena of Protoplasm, and that therefore life can exist only 
in Protoplasm of relatively large bulk, as compared with the hypothetical life 
units. This view has experimental support. It also is in accordance with 
Biitschli’s foam theory of Protoplasm, All vital phenomena depend upon the 
arrangement and composition of the multifarious constituents of Protoplasm. The 
Theory of Panplasm, therefore, calls for a chemical explanation of Protoplasmatic 
functions. 
3. On Multiple Cell Division as compared with Bi-partition as Herbert 
Spencer's limit of growth. By Professor Marcus Hartoe, I.A., D.Sc., 
ELS. 
Herbert Spencer showed that the growth of the cell without change of shape 
necessarily reduced the area of surface in proportion to the mass, and gave this as 
a sufficient explanation of ordinary cell-division. Another type of cell-division is 
that in which successive divisions occur without any interval for growth; such 
divisions are variously known as Sporulation, Segmentation, and Brood formation, 
but a more convenient term is ‘multiple cell-formation.’ This frequently occurs 
determined by considerations of space; as, for instance, when an elongated cell 
rounds off, its superficial area is much reduced, and multiple cell-formation restores 
the necessary ratio. 
Another case is that of a cell in which the food has been utilised largely for 
the storage of reserve materials instead of for the growth of protoplasm. Judging 
from what takes place in plants, we might anticipate that the protoplasm could 
not utilise these materials without the previous formation of a zymose or chemical 
ferment with which to render such reserves available for growth. This antici- 
pation has been confirmed; by appropriate methods the author has extracted a 
peptonising zymose from the segmenting egg of the frog at a time when the 
hypoblast was still visible through the blastopore; and from the hen’s embryo at 
twenty-four hours, and from the extravascular blastoderm at later stages. This 
affords a key to multiple cell-formation in a large number of cases, where the 
secretion of a ferment has, by an abundant food-supply, determined protoplasmic 
growth at the expense of the reserves, and so determined the need for an extension 
of surface. 
A probable deduction from this observation is that where reserves are to be 
utilised by the containing-cell, the antecedent formation of a zymose is necessary, 
and that digestion is a function, not of protoplasm, but of the ferments which 
protoplasm may secrete. 
The zymoses obtained by the author from segmenting embryos were active in 
neutral as well as in acid solution, and in this respect appear to differ from the 
ferments observed in protozoa. 
4. The Present Position of Morphology in Zoological Science. By EK. W. 
MacBripe, J/.A., Fellow of St. John’s College, Cambridge ; Univer- 
sity Demonstrator of Animal Morphology. 
For some time back a distrust of the morphological method of studying 
evolution has been growing up amongst zoologists. Alternative methods have 
been suggested as more fruitful lines of research. These will be examined in the 
first place to show that they labour from defects from which morphology is free ; 
then the causes of the discontent with morphology will be inquired into; and 
finally some new points of view from which morphological facts may be regarded 
will be put forward. ; 
4 The most important alternative methods which have been put forward are 
three :— 
1. Mechanics of development or experimental embryology. 
In this method the endeavour is made to separate into its factors the complex 
ye 
