CLASSIFICATION OF LIVING TYPES S5 



whereas the result of our work impresses upon us 

 the continuity between them and gives to inorganic 

 matter in certain of its states the property or 

 quality of instability and decay in common with 

 life in its highest forms, and impresses also upon 

 us the fact that by the interaction of this kind of 

 inorganic molecules with bodies of highly complex 

 composition there can result others which not merely 

 disintegrate and decay, but actually go through the 

 cyclic process, by growth in the beginning and by 

 subdivision in the end. 



It is this cyclic process that is the test of life in the 

 lower as well as in higher forms of matter. In the 

 bacillus it is accompanied by reproduction. In the 

 radiobe it is confined to growth, subdivision, and 

 decay, and reproduction which is only degenerative. 

 The products of the subdivision do not go through 

 the same cyclic change as the parent, and as we go 

 down lower in the scale, the instability is to be 

 found throughout, and the consequent decay ; and 

 metabolisms which are performed in a considerable 

 range of inorganic Nature. 



We now come to the classification which it was 

 our intention to propose. But it will be beyond 

 the limits of this chapter to sketch much more than 

 in outline the manner of demarcation which we 

 desire to make. 



All bodies which manifest vitality in any kind or 

 form are supposed to be unstable, and to have a 

 central nucleus visible or invisible. They may or 

 may not possess an actual structure such as a cell- wall. 

 In the higher grades of life the cell must contain a 



