30 
SUMMARY OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 
infinitesimal germinal particles grow and divide just at the right time 
and order, and control development so as to build up anew the arrange- 
ment of parts as seen in the parent-type.” But progress lies rather in 
the resolute refusal to recognise anything in the nature of preformed 
organs or gemmules, except the actual chemical molecules. 
“ The organism during every phase of its existence is a molecular 
mechanism of inconceivable complexity, the sole motive force of which 
is the energy that may be set free by the co-ordinated, transformation of 
some of its molecules by metabolism.” If not, the principle of the con- 
servation of energy does not hold true for organisms. The detailed 
organisation of living matter must be the result of the operation of forces 
liberated by its own substance during its growth by means of metabolism. 
The parts of the whole apparatus are kept in a condition of continuous 
moving equilibrium by external agencies. 
Variations arise by the blending of molecular dynamical systems of 
different initial potential strengths, by the conjugation of sex-cells (re- 
ciprocal integration), and by means of variations in the interactions of 
such resultant systems with their surroundings. 
It is an unwarrantable assumption that only some of the matter in 
the germ is concerned in hereditary transmission, and that the rest is 
passive. For the germ is a single whole, a dynamical system. 
It seems i£ as if the permutations, transformations, and the dynamical 
readjustment of the metameres of the molecules of living matter were 
the source of its varying potentialities as manifested in its protean 
changes of specific form and function.” Similarly, in the germ “ the 
initial changes in the configuration of the complex molecular system 
must dynamically determine within certain variable limits, under chang- 
ing conditions, the nature of all its subsequent transformations. The 
‘ ids,’ e idants,’ &c., are not causes but mere effects, produced as passing 
shadows, so to speak, in the operation of the perfectly continuous pro- 
cesses of metabolism incident to development.” All the forces of 
development are ultimately metabolic in their origin. 
Any assumed isotropy of the germ is inconsistent with fact ; it is 
“ seolotropic,” i.e. different along each radius. But the “ seolotropy ” of 
the molecular structure of the germ is followed by a gradually increas- 
ing simplification of molecular structure of organs as these are built up. 
“Corpuscular doctrines of inheritances are merely a. survival in 
philosophical hypothesis of a pre-Aristotelian deus ex machina. The 
dynamical hypothesis rejects the deus ex machina , but finds a real 
mechanism in the germ that is an automaton, but that is such only in 
virtue of its structure and the potential energy stored up within it. 
Every step in the transformation of such a mechanism is mechanically 
conditioned within limits by what has preceded it, and which in turn so 
conditions, within limits, what is to follow, and so on for ever through a 
succession of descendants.” 
Further Remarks on the Cell-Theory.* — Mr. A. Sedgwick adds to 
the remarks which he has already made on the cell- theory ,| and also 
offers a reply to the criticisms of Mr. G. C. Bourne. J Mr. Sedgwick 
points out that the assertion that organisms present a constitution which 
* Quart. Journ. Micr. Sci., xxxviii. (1895) pp. 331-7. 
t See this Journal, 1395, p. 29. | Tom. cit., p. 610. 
