Cope 259 
that point. All modifications of form can thus be traced 
to activity of this energy at particular points.” 
“The building energy being thus understood to be a 
mode of molecular motion, we are not at liberty to suppose 
that its existence is dependent on the dimensions of the 
organic body which exhibits it. It is as characteristic 
of the organic unit or plastidule as the mode of motion 
which builds the crystal is of the simplest molecular 
aggregate from which the crystal arises. Bathmism has, 
however, no other resemblance to crystalloid cohesion. 
The latter is a simple energy which acts within geo- 
metrically related spaces, without regard to anything 
else than the present compulsion of superior weight- 
energy. In bathmism we see the resultant of innumerable 
antecedent influences, which builds an organism con- 
structed for adaptation to the varied and irregularly 
occuring contingencies which characterize the life of liv- 
ing beings. As this resultant is distinctive for every 
species, bathmism must be regarded as a generic term, 
and the characteristic growth energy of each species as 
distinct species of energy, which present also diversities 
expressive of the peculiarities of individuals.” 1° 
It would be superfluous to bring forward the extraor- 
dinary indefiniteness and, we can almost say, pure 
verbalism without any foundation in fact of this theory 
of Cope’s which approximates closely Haeckel’s theory 
of perigenesis with its undulatory plastidular movement. 
We shall confine ourselves to remarking merely that each 
given dynamic state of the protoplasm peculiar to a 
given species, when it thus represents in itself the result- 
ant of all dynamic states, which were peculiar to the 
5Cope: Ibid. P. 447—449. 
