ORIGIN OF LIFE, SEX, SPECIES, ETC. 217 



suddenly arrested when the particles, etc., met and 

 combined. But though arrested, this energy had 

 not been lost, only changed into violent vibrations 

 of the particles themselves, and into translatory 

 strains, or actual translatory motions of the smaller 

 concentrations formed within the masses. These 

 motions facilitated the concentration of like with 

 like and dissociation from unlike. 



Concentration can only take place when like 

 impulses act on numerous like particles diffused 

 throughout a section of space or within a mass. 



Since the internal agitation within these masses 

 facilitated concentration and segregation, and since 

 histoblasts, the forerunners of cells, are formed by 

 the segregation and concentration of particular pro- 

 toplasmic compounds, which before this concentra- 

 tion are diffused throughout the masses in which 

 this occurs, therefore it follows that all the materials 

 and conditions prerequisite to the formation of 

 histoblasts existed within these masses, and there- 

 fore that it was only a question of time when the 

 formation of histoblasts would begin. 



After their formation these histoblasts or prospec- 

 tive cells, although microscopically small, having 

 extension, possessed an outside surface and a center. 

 They were therefore mathematically divisible into 

 an infinitely numerous series of infinitely thin 

 strata or layers intermediate between the extreme 

 outside and the center. The extreme outside stra- 

 tum on one side is always in contact with the sub- 



