PROTOPLASM. THE INDIVIDUAL 37 



or fertilisation act before the originally combining elements 

 are restored or reproduced. 



The development of the living Individual, whatever its 

 kind, is a process of cell-multiplication and differentiation ; 

 it is evolution. The undifferentiated embryonic cells become 

 in their product the original elements, whose union started 

 the Individual ; it is an evolution leading to the restoration 

 of the original and temporarily lost sexual element " plans," 

 a restoration depending, according to our suggestion, on 

 that of the " plans " of their basoplasmic molecules. Where 

 the Individual is cellularly continuous there is also a very 

 obvious evolution in gradual somatic tissue-differentiation, 

 and this must surely be based on progressive basoplasmic 

 molecular change. In a word, our supposition is that as 

 after sexual elements combine their identities disappear, so 

 also is there a loss of identity of the respective basoplasmic 

 molecules, the complete Individual representing all the 

 growth-reactions necessary for the restoration of identity. 



We could picture the fusion of conjugating elements as 

 entailing a fusion of their plasmolecules with resulting loss 

 of plasmolecular identity, followed by the division of the 

 enlarged plasmolecules, and finally the first act of cell- 

 division. But a plasmolecule in either division-result would 

 have an unstable constitution and resemble neither of the 

 original plasmolecules whose fusion produced it. And it 

 would try to recover its lost equilibrium and identity by 

 growing ; that is, by attaching to itself atoms from outside 

 its personality, discarding many in the process. But before 

 more than a slight advance had been made on the road to 

 the recovery of lost identity or plan it would attain an 

 enlargement which obliged it to divide into two, giving, 

 in the mass, a renewed act of cell-division. And the process 

 would go on till in a straight line of production a huge number 

 of division acts ended in the recovery of lost plasmolecular 

 plan and the restoration of one of the original sexual elements : 

 leaving out of account the side-path evolution and tissue 

 differentiation which occur in presence of cell-continuity. 



This in its broadest lines is the suggestion offered 

 regarding the plasmolecular cycle. That when sexual ele- 

 ments fuse, their plasmolecules do likewise ; and that the 

 plasmolecular oyole begins with an act of plasmolecular 



