APPENDIX. 
12 7 
of idioplasm or germ plasm. The process of throwing away half 
the nuclear rods in an egg cell and of division into two in a 
sperm cell, Weismann describes as a reducing division, which 
process he says holds good for ovum and sperm cells in all animals 
and, so far as is known, in plants also. 
According to Weismann, all living matter is made up of 
vital units (the smallest capable of life), to which he gives the 
name of biophors, or life bearers. These biophors are neither 
atoms nor molecules, but consist of groups of molecules, between 
which chemical interaction is continually taking place. That is 
to say, life is not a chemical substance, but a complex chemical 
process, comparable to (though much more complicated than) 
the process of combustion which takes place in a candle flame. 
A flame is not stuff — not a mere substance — but a process of 
exchange between the wax or tallow on the one hand, and the 
air on the other. 
Now, as all living matter consists of biophors, the differences 
in it can only depend on the differences in the biophors composing 
it. Biophors may differ in : 
(i.) The number of their molecules. 
(rid) The composition of their individual molecules. 
(Hi.) The arrangement of the molecules within the 
biophor. 
In order to illustrate difference which may depend upon 
difference of arrangement, apart from difference of composition, 
1 may mention two well-known chemical substances, Ammonium 
cyanate and urea, the latter of which circulates as a waste 
product in the human body, and is got rid of by the kidneys. 
These substances both consist of Carbon, Nitrogen, Hydrogen, 
and Oxygen, in exactly similar proportions, and yet they are quite 
different substances both in appearance and properties. A still 
more familiar example may be given in the way in which three 
letters, say, may be differently combined. A, B, C, for instance, 
may be put together in five different ways. Still more, the twenty- 
six letters of the English Alphabet can be combined into the hundreds 
of thousands of different words in the English, German, French, 
Spanish, Italian, Latin, Dutch, and other languages, to say nothing 
of American, Lancashire, and Westmorland dialects, Cockney 
and thieves’ slang, and others which have not yet been invented. 
Taking, then, the comparatively few elements of which living 
matter is composed, the number of different biophors which can 
be built up from them is practically infinite. 
It is not to be supposed, however, that the differences between 
fowl and fish or between a crested Fern and a plumose consist 
simply in the differences between their different individual 
biophors. The biophors are built up into higher and more 
