CHAP. XI The Elements of Structure 183 



marvellous than those which relate to dividing cells. From 

 Protozoa to man, and also in plants, the process is strik- 

 ingly uniform. The nucleus of the cell becomes more 

 active, the coil or network of threads which it contains is 

 undone and takes the new and more regular form of a 

 spindle or barrel. The division is most thorough, each of 

 the two daughter- cells getting an accurate half of the 

 original nucleus. Recent investigators, moreover, assert 

 that from certain centres in the cell-substance an influence 

 is exerted on the nuclear threads, and they talk of an archo- 

 plasm within the protoplasm, and of marked individuality of 

 behaviour in the nuclear threads. 



From the cell as a unit element we penetrate to the 

 protoplasm which makes it what it is. Within this we 

 discern an intricate network, within this, special centres of 

 force — " attractive spheres " and " central corpuscles," or 

 an " archoplasm " within the protoplasm ! We study the 

 nucleus, first as a simple unit which divides, years after- 

 wards as composed of a network or coil of nuclear threads 

 which seem ever to become more and more marvellous, 

 " behaving like little organisms." We split these up 

 into " microsomata," and so on, and so on. But we do 

 not catch the life of the cell, we cannot locate it, we cannot 

 give an account of the mechanics of cell-division. It is a 

 mystery of life. After all our analysis we have to confess 

 that the cell, or the protoplasm, or the archoplasm, or the 

 chromatin threads of the nucleus, or the "microsomata" 

 which compose them, baffle our analysis ; they behave as 

 they do because they are alive. Were we omniscient 

 chemists, such as Laplace imagined in one of his specula- 

 tions, and knew the secret of protoplasm, how its touch 

 upon the simpler states of matter is powerful to give them 

 life, we should but have completed a small part of those 

 labours that even now lie waiting us ; what further investi- 

 gations will present themselves we cannot tell. 



