io6 THE ORIGIN OF LIFE 



occasionally to do. It all depends upon the nature 

 of the segregation whether it is like a fission or a 

 cleavage. The photographs show this most dis- 

 tinctly as it occurs within fourteen days or so, 

 the subdivision being clearly not of the nature of a 

 cleavage. These subdivisions do not resemble 

 those obtained by Professor Biitschli, of Heidelberg, 

 by the action on soluble salts of such substances 

 as olive oil : the bodies obtained by emulsion of 

 these bodies in water behave much as if they were 

 elementary forms of living things. But here again 

 it is upon the nature of the subdivisions that we 

 must rest our assurance as to what these sub- 

 divisions mean. These subdivisions are quite 

 different from anything we should expect mere 

 surface tension to effect. 



A close examination of the mode of segregation 

 at once shows that the " cell," if we may call it 

 so, becomes divided into segments, much in the 

 same way as ordinary yeast cells are well known 

 to do. Sharp corners, which are not unusual in 

 the part so segregated, seem incompatible with 

 the proposed theory of some overbalance in the 

 force of surface-tension over the internal forces 

 which tend to keep the body intact. Many 

 minute bodies subdivide, but they thus subdivide 

 in different ways : and the manner in which they 

 are found to do this is, we venture to think, as 

 important, if not far more so, than the mere fact 

 that they do so actually divide. In this way it 

 may again be urged that there are many microscopic 

 particles which are known to pass through some of 



