176 A Review of the Modern Doctrine of Evolution. (March, 
transmitted to its descendants; so also a character which is 
lost near this time is likely to be wanting from the offspring. 
The causes of acceleration and retardation may next claim atten- 
tion, 
¢ It is well known that the decomposition of the nutritive fluids 
‘ within living animals gives rise, in the appropriate tissues, to 
exhibitions of different kinds of forces. These are, motion in all 
classes; heat in some only; in a still smaller number, electricity 
and light; in all, at certain times, growth-force or bathmism; in 
many, phrenism or mental or thought-force. These are all derived 
from equivalent amounts of chemical force which are liberated 
by the dissolution of protoplasm. This organic substance, con- 
sisting of CHON, undergoes retrograde metamorphosis, being 
resolved into the simpler CO, HO, etc.,and necessarily liberates 
force in the process. None of the functions of animal life can be 
maintained without supplies of protoplasm. We have here to do 
with bathmism. It consists of the movement of material to, and 
its deposition in, certain definite portions of the growing egg, or _ 
foetus, as the case may be. It is different in its movements in 
every species, and its direction is probably the resultant of a 
number of opposing strains. In the simplest animals its polar 
equilibrium is little disturbed, for these creatures consist of nearly 
globular masses of cells. As we ascend the scale a greater and | 
more marked interference becomes apparent; radiated animals 
display energy in a number of radiating lines rather than in the 
spaces between them ; and in longitudinal animals, a longitudinal 
* axis exceeds all others in extent and importance. In the highest 
animals its results are much more evident at one extremity of the 
axis (head) than at the other, and the diverging lines are reduced 
to,four (the limbs). In each species the movements of this 
force are uniform and habitual, and it is evident that the habit is 
so deeply seated that only a very strong dynamic interference 
can modify or divert it. The interfering forces are probably 
all those transmissible through living tissue, and especially 
molar force. Thus every species has its own specific kind of 
bathmic force, 
The characters of living beings are either adaptive or non- 
adaptive ; they are either machines especially fitted to meet the 
peculiarities of their environment, or they are not. _ Among the | 
latter may be ranged rudimental structures and also many others 
