254 The Lesson oj the Unnucleated Cell. iMay, 
We have seen the proposition of the German philoso- 
phers, and also that of Mr. Minot. Another German natu- 
ralist, Dr. Mobius, dissents from his brother professo . 
He asks:— Is the idea of immortality applicable to the 
Protozoa which propagate by fission ? Do they P®™* “ 
individuals until their life is destroyed by some outwa 
agencv ? ” And answers Adult Protozoa in their fissi- 
parous generation leave no part of their body behind which 
can die. But they cannot on that account be regarded L as 
immortal, for on fission their individual existence is gradually 
extinguished, and comes to an end in a moment when the 
daughter offsets separate from each other. _ With the co 
elusion of the process of fission the mother individual ceas 
to live, but the substance of its body carries on the same 
specific functions in the effedts, and indeed with a rejuvenated 
susceptibility to external impressions which in the a &® 
individuals had been gradually fainter and fainter and had 
finally ceased altogether. Whilst the bodily substance re- 
adts more faintly to outward impressions, there appeal in 
its interior striking movements, which precede the fission ot 
the maternal body, and evidently subserve the rejuvenescence 
of such substance for its progeny. The retradtion of the 
cilia, the disappearance of the flagella, the rounding o 
the body, and its incapsulation before fission, must enfee 
the irritability of the older individuals. 1 he young offshoots 
begin their individual life with great susceptibility to external 
impressions, because their bodily substance consists ot 
freshly-located molecules.”* He then states that in n 
they are constituent cells of the particular parts of the solid subrtanc* : of the 
only colourless and nucleated corpuscles. All vertebrates tne yo g 
tures . -(Vide “ Blood and Lymph,” pp. 58 to 64). 
(S. B.) 
