substances become teleorganic by the assumption of a Spherical Form.
The blastema, or nutrient fluid, contains the higher multiples and the proximate principles of indefinite composition, but it is merorganic, not teleorganic; it is organizable, it is not vital ; and the one decisive condition—the only one known—which can transform this blastema into a vital substance is simply the assumption of a Spherical Form.
In saying that the passage from the inorganic to the organic is effected by the assumption of the spherical form (which may stand as a general statement of my theory, qualified by what has been said respecting multiples and synthesis), I am really saying no more than what the facts reveal. Its novelty may startle, but what is it more than the mineralogist's explanation of crystallization ? Just as the solution becomes a crystal only when its molecules arrange themselves in a determinate form, so does the blastema become vital only when its molecules arrange themselves in a determinate form.
Not only is this assumption of a Spherical Form the last step in the process, but by the loss of that Form the cell loses its peculiar vital characteristic—its reproductive power. I cannot here enter upon the mass of evidence ready to prove this position, but must con-tent myself with the assertion, confident that physiology will show organic substance becomes vital as soon as it assumes the cell form, and ceases to be vital (reproductive), though not ceasing to be organized, with its loss of that form. " It seems established," says Dr. Carpenter, " as the aggregate result of the labours of many observers, that in animals as in plants all the parts in which active vital changes are taking place essentially consist of cells, which may be regarded as the real instruments of these operations, the tissues with which they are blended having no other purpose than to supply the physical conditions requisite for them."* If M. Brame's discovery should prove true, this essential activity of the cell will be further illustrated by it. At any rate, sufficient evidence exists to show that the Spherical Form is a constituent element of organic life, and I have striven to demonstrate that it is the last determinate step in the passage to vitality.
I have been asked, and shall be asked again, " Whence this Spherical Form ? What is the cause which determines these higher multiples to assume the Spherical Form ?"
I do not know. The question is one which no positive philosopher will ask ; recognizing as he does the impossibility of our ever knowing causes. He endeavours to trace the "relations of existence and succession," and is content if he succeed. In the foregoing pages I have endeavoured to trace the statical conditions which characterize organic substances. If they are accurately traced you have no more right to ask me what causes the protein compounds to become spheroid, than you have to ask what causes a saline solution to assume a rhomboidal solidity and become crystal. These are ultimate facts ; the hieroglyphs no priest can read !
It is not hereby implied that no farther and more intimate discovery of the process will be made. I seem to see various avenues opening. When the proximate principles of organized bodies are more accurately known there can be little doubt that we shall arrive at the discovery of certain properties, to be classed among the ultimate facts, which will supply' details now wanted.
As a specimen of what I mean, the well-known discovery of Ascherson * will serve. In the remarks which follow, however, the reader must understand that we are venturing into the vast region of hypothesis guided by very tremulous lights, and he will consider them as supplementary to my theory, not as constituent parts.
Ascherson found that fat or oil globules in an albuminous solution became coated with pellicles of coagulated albumen; thus presenting, he thought, a type of cell-formation. Now whether this taking on of an albuminous pellicle be a chemical phenomenon, as he and Wittich think, or a purely mechanical phenomenon, as Hartin