CHAPTER VIII 



ON THE STRUCTURE OP CELLS, NATURAL AND 

 ARTIFICIAL, AND THE SOURCE OP THE ENERGY OP 

 VITAL PLUX 



Distinction between artificial and nattiral life — Morphology of 

 cells — Vital process essentially a metabolism — Complexity 

 of cell structure and potentiality of cell — The vital process 

 as distinct from complexity of structure — The nucleus and 

 karyokinesis — Max Verwom on structure as result of 

 metabolism — Whether his views may not be modified in 

 the light of more recent ideas of the nature of solid and 

 liquid bodies — Difficulties in studying structure of living 

 cell — Cellular structure imparted by reagents — The ultimate 

 or wth nucleus — Its probable nature, an aggregate of elec- 

 trons like a radio-active element — Internal energy of Uving 

 matter thus stored up in the aether — This may fit in as a 

 physical and dynamical explanation of Sir Oliver Lodge's 

 immaterial source of energy in living, organisms, thus 

 apparently independent of material connections, but reaUy 

 subject to the universal law of the conservation of energy. 



With the reservations which have been made it is 

 sufficiently clear at this stage that the vital processes 

 in the radiobe and other such bodies constitute 

 merely artificial life, as distinct from that natural 

 life, we see around us, and which it is beyond our 

 wildest hopes to imitate, much less to create. 



