t company.

Imitation of the living by the unorganized may, however, go a good way.
Not only does chemistry make organic syntheses, but we have succeeded in
reproducing artificially the external appearance of certain facts of
organization, such as indirect cell-division and protoplasmic
circulation. It is well known that the protoplasm of the cell effects
various movements within its envelope; on the other hand, indirect
cell-division is the outcome of very complex operations, some involving
the nucleus and others the cytoplasm. These latter commence by the
doubling of the centrosome, a small spherical body alongside the
nucleus. The two centrosomes thus obtained draw apart, attract the
broken and doubled ends of the filament of which the original nucleus
mainly consisted, and join them to form two fresh nuclei about which the
two new cells are constructed which will succeed the first. Now, in
their broad lines and in their external appearance, some at least of
these operations have been successfully imitated. If some sugar or table
salt is pulverized and some very old oil is added, and a drop of the
mixture is observed under the microscope, a froth of alveolar structure
is seen whose configuration is like that of protoplasm, according to
certain theories, and in which movements take place which are decidedly
like those of protoplasmic circulation.[12] If, in a froth of the same
kind, the air is extracted from an alveolus, a cone of attraction is
seen to form, like those about the centrosomes which result in the
division of the nucleus.[13] Even the external motions of a unicellular
organism--of an amoeba, at any rate--are sometimes explained
mechanically. The displacements of an amoeba in a drop of water would be
comparable to the motion to and fro of a grain of dust in a draughty
room. Its mass is all the time absorbing certain soluble matters
contained in the surrounding water, and giving back to it certain
others; these continual exchanges, like those between two vessels
separated by a porous partition, would create an everchanging vortex
around the little organism. As for the temporary prolongations or
pseudopodia which the amoeba seems to make, they would be not so much
given out by it as attracted from it by a kind of inhalation or suction
of the surrounding medium.[14] In the same way we may perhaps come to
explain the more complex movements which the Infusorian makes with its
vibratory cilia, which, moreover, a