158 THE ORIGIN OF LIFE 



cells, is not altogether satisfactory unless there exists 

 during the formation of a crystal such a process as 

 that which Schon supposes. There are, however, 

 types of organic crystals and bio-crystals which seem 

 to have the power of intussusception, or of taking in 

 new matter into their interior. As we have seen, the 

 organisms or organic cells produced by radium and 

 other salts do possess that power of metabolic action 

 to some extent. 



Now the process of intussusception may be produced 

 by very elementary physical processes, for a colloid 

 globule immersed in a salt solution, provided it does 

 not dissolve, may grow by assimilation ; in other 

 words, the process of nutrition may be imitated 

 physically. It therefore seems that those processes 

 which are associated with vitality, even in its highest 

 sense, may be reproduced if the various conditions 

 which, as we have seen, can be produced artificially 

 could also be made to coexist. Even metabolism 

 can take place without the combination of the other 

 processes, whilst its coexistence with the other 

 functions would thus give rise to cellular life in its 

 highest sense. 



All these bio-crystals or organic crystals and 

 colloid bodies under certain circumstances, as with 

 a nucleus with a considerable source of energy 

 stored up in it, may possess the power of growth or 

 nutrition by its intussusception, as well as reproduc- 

 tion ; the secret of the reproduction being in the 

 peculiar nature of the nucleus itself, which, strictly 

 speaking, is a cell within another cell, and the substance 



