the negative, if the wires are dipped into the vessel containing them. Some move towards light, others away from it, with unvarying regularity. Temperature and chemical substances also cause a definite effect upon these micro-organisms. And all these movements are wholly involuntary, absolutely invariable, and, in fact, reactions evoked by fixed causes.
Nevertheless, it will be seen that protoplasm can only continue to exist in the form of a cell, since, unless thus organized, it can neither keep itself among favourable surroundings nor prepare fresh ingredients to make good its waste. If a cell be cut up into several pieces, these detached bits of protoplasm will live for a time; but death overtakes them as soon as they have used up their reserve material. When this is gone, they have to consume their own substance, a process which quickly proves fatal. Should a fragment contain a small part of the nucleus cut away with it, it will live a little longer; but it is only the piece which contains the nucleus more or less intact—in other words, the cell, damaged though it be—which can survive and recover from such mutilation.
The specialization of protoplasm to form a cell is perhaps its most remarkable peculiarity. Not only is protoplasm differentiated to form different structures, but it devotes the energy evolved in its ceaseless change to different purposes. The protoplasm of the motor organs of the cell expends itself wholly in producing the physical movements necessary to approach and capture food. When this has been passed into the cell, protoplasm of another variety works to refine and dissolve it, and then passes it on to the nucleus. The protoplasm of the nucleus, again, has different work to do. It devotes its energy to producing chemical changes in the raw material, and converting it into new compounds which the various parts of the cell can assimilate. Some of these it retains for its own needs; the rest it dispenses to the motor and other organs to repair their waste, and supply them with energy to obtain more food.
Thus do the different varieties of protoplasm which compose a cell supply one another’s needs, and enable
