1885.] The Lesson of the Unnucleated Cell. 255 
tenth division the creature has at the most but 1.1024th 
part of the ancestral body with which it started. The 
Protozoa consist of one plastide only. Subsequent genera- 
tions of Protozoa consist therefore more or less of bodily 
substance which they have individually elaborated, and less 
and less of ancestral constituents. 
“ The Protozoa are, like the Metazoa, to be regarded as 
psychically centralised individuals. In the several psychic 
centres of the offshoots the former psychic centre of the 
mother cannot persist, because her individual bodily and 
spiritual life is extinguished by fission. The Protozoa can 
therefore, from a psychological view, not be regarded as 
immortal.” 
Thus we see that the assumption of the immortality of 
the Protozoa is founded on another, viz., that the debris of 
dead Protozoa, extindl by senescence or natural death, are 
not discoverable. It might be asked, has that pertinacious 
observation which characterised those of Dr. Dallinger and 
his coadjutor been pursued ? In their case six years of un- 
wearied observations were passed before the result was 
disclosed. Do the blood corpuscles give no hint of the 
possibility of there being such debris as it is contended do 
not exist ? Had Dr. Dallinger’s observations been inter- 
mittent it is more than probable the final result would not 
have been observed. 
In assuming that the Protozoon is immortal we are at the 
same time assuming that matter in a concrete form is constant, 
and can exist for ever, once formed for ever continuing. Such 
an assumption is contrary to all the conclusions of Science ; 
the law of Nature is mutation ; nothing consists in its 
original elements ; there are constant inhalations and ex- 
cretions. Thus of necessity every concrete form is in a 
state of continual change, and probably in a short period 
not one atom of the original Protozoon is existing ; and, as 
Mobius truly says, even supposing the original Protozoon 
had an existence, the repeated divisions would rob the sub- 
stance of all pretence of individuality. In what, then, does 
the immortality consist ? There can be but one answer : in 
the life energy whose functional power caused the coalescence 
of the substance, and presented on the face of Nature the 
unnucleated cell, that potence from whence all animation 
ensued. The life energy is exhibited in its power of gather- 
ing to itself all substances on which its energy can be 
exerted, the condensation of the gaseous envelope which 
surrounds the world of life. The question is rather Cosmic 
than Biological, and discloses the hidden impulse, that 
