NUCLEUS AS SOURCE OF ENERGY 163 



living species. It was not so very long ago that the 

 chemist proudly proclaimed that the atoms were 

 sacred structures, and that same proclamation is 

 to-day the catch-word of the orthodox biologist in 

 regard to the organic cells with which he has to 

 deal so far as they are vital units. Clerk Max- 

 well regarded the elements as the foundation-stones 

 of nature, but in the same manner as Virchow and 

 other eminent biologists of the present period regard 

 the corresponding units of life. Such types are, 

 we think, only approximately distinct, and circum- 

 stances may be brought about by which they should 

 be made, or enabled, to change one into the other. 

 These circumstances may be extremely difficult to 

 ascertain, and in fact they may be largely if not 

 altogether accidental. But as in the case of radio- 

 active substances the transformations are spontane- 

 ous, so may it be that with particular types of living 

 things in certain circumstances similar transmutations 

 should occur. 



We have made it clear, we hope, that there is no 

 a priori reason to suppose that such changes or trans- 

 formations of stable types should not also occur in 

 the organic as well as in the inorganic world. We 

 may then pass on for the present without entering 

 into the details of Dr. Bastian's work. We have 

 simply seen that the heterogenesis is the most probable 

 result of our hypothesis, that the nucleus of the 

 natural cell is composed in its ultimate aspect of 

 a substance which might be described as a bio- 

 radio-carbon element : and that when such a cell 



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