CORRELATION OF PHENOMENA j-j 



divide, and to some extent, however slightly, 

 reproduce in subcultures. We have called these 

 " radiobes," as indicating their characteristic proper- 

 ties as well as their origin. We can say perhaps that 

 we are witnesses at last to the first beginnings of 

 life in its higher sense : but though apparently a 

 case of abiogenesis, to our mind it seems to be a case 

 of biogenesis, from the view of matter which we take, 

 of biogenesis indeed carried to its logical extreme. 



The radium atom may thus act as a nucleus which, 

 in the suitable surrounding medium containing the 

 constituents of protoplasm, assumes in the molecules 

 around it the definite and unstable forms which are 

 associated with living things. The properties we 

 call " vital " appear to be associated with the radium 

 emanation which, in the water from springs, or in the 

 earth itself, may have been the cause " through the 

 prodigious vista of the past " of the commencement 

 of life upon our planet. Even Huxley, who denied 

 biogenesis at the present day, has said that if it 

 were given to him to look beyond the abyss of 

 geologically recorded time to the still more remote 

 period when the earth was passing through physical 

 and chemical conditions which it can no more see 

 again than a man can recall his infancy, he would 

 expect to be a witness of the evolution of living 

 protoplasm from non-living matter. He would have 

 expected to see it appear under forms of great 

 simplicity, endowed, like existing fungi, with the 

 power of determining the formation of new proto- 

 plasm from such matters as ammonium carbonates. 



