42 Nature of the Formative Stimulus 
Hertwig seems to have of protoplasmic connections, for 
while it is true that he never discusses such a continuous 
nervous flux and speaks only of the transmission of 
nuclear stimuli, nevertheless this latter conception in our 
mind implies the former. To sum up our conception of 
these protoplasmic connections we could almost adopt 
the very words of this investigator: “It is probable that 
this transmission of nuclear stimuli by protoplasmic fila- 
ments will be much less rapid and less intensive than 
nerve conduction, but perhaps for this very reason will 
be more continuous and by reason of its duration more 
efficacious.” 19 
It is quite unnecessary to draw especial attention to 
the fact that the vegetable kingdom is not in any way an 
obstacle to this conception of a continuous nervous flux 
throughout the whole organism, for if nervous phe- 
nomena are less apparent in it than in the animal kingdom, 
they constitute nevertheless just as in the latter the essence 
of the vital phenomenon. 
From amoeboid movements, from the vibrations of 
cilia and flagella up to the most complex psychic phe- 
nomena, everywhere where life is, one finds also processes 
of nervous nature. The reticular or fibrillar structure 
which protoplasm in general exhibits, protoplasmic 
currents, especially those in very long, fine filaments, 
such as for example those in the pseudopodia of the 
rhizipod Gromia oviformis, which by their peculiar 
character make one suspect that they may be only the 
consequence and sensible effect of currents provoked by 
an energy of another kind, the striations consisting of 
bundles of curved parallel lines without sharp angles in 
“Oscar Hertwig: Die Zelle und die Gewebe, Zw. Buch. P. 40, 
