474 Organic Physics. [June, 



pleted in a single step and inactivity be immediately produced, or 

 it may require several successive steps, and inactivity be only 

 gradually produced. Molecules in which considerable activity 

 yet exists we denominate as acids or bases, accordingly as they 

 diverge to the negative or positive side in their electric relations. 

 Molecules in which activity has ceased, or has become very 

 slight, we know as salts. If all their affinities are satisfied they 

 are neutral salts. If acid or basic affinities yet exist they are acid 

 or basic salts. 



But the inactivity of a neutral salt only refers to its further 

 synthesis. It is still susceptible of analysis. Some of its ele- 

 mentary materials may be taken from it by the affinities of an 

 active element. And this loss of material leaves the molecule 

 again energetic. It has become once more an active radical, and 

 is capable of regaining the materials it has lost, or of taking up 

 new ones. Thus it may form a new molecule more complex than 



These modes of action of inorganic chemism certainly apply to 

 organic chemism, even in its highest stages. Every exercise of 

 affinity satisfies some of the active chemical energy of the mole- 

 cule, and thus reduces its energies. When these are all satisfied 

 it becomes inactive. It is a neutral salt, incapable of further syn- 

 thesis, yet still open to analysis. But if we look upon a molecule 

 of protoplasm as an organic salt it is evident that it may have 

 many more bonds of unsatisfied affinity than an inorganic salt. 

 An acid or basic inorganic salt is neutralized after taking up one 

 or two monad atoms. An analogous organic salt may perhaps be 

 able to take up successively ten or twenty monad atoms, or com- 

 pound radicals. 



These considerations are not without their bearing upon the 

 question of the growth of protoplasm. Did the proteid molecule 

 act only by its own chemical energies, evidently its action could nqt 

 long continue. Although it might begin with many unsaved 

 bonds, every new exercise of affinity would decrease its possible 

 action. When all its affinities were satisfied growth must cease, 

 and the molecule become a neutral salt. But though synthesis 

 could proceed no further, analysis might act to again energize the 

 molecule, and the more complex its condition the more subject it 

 must become to analytic action. 



Such seems to be the mode of operation in protoplasmic growth. 



