The San Francisco call., 1904-07-07

ter into the interior Of the sphere. In
addition, capillary forces between the
cells probably play a role, too, in the
arrangement of the wall of the bias
tula Thus the cavity of the blastula
is formed Therefore the egg does not
need any other qualities for the hered-
ity of the blastula stage than certain
chemical substances and the OsmOtic
properties which are peculiar to almost
all living protoplasms, and which we
can initiate in the laboratory in artifi-
cial membranes.
The formation of the gastrula from
the blastula presupposes that two diff
ferent substances are present in the
egg which form the ectOderm and the
entoderm. These may be separated
from the beginning. and this would
h2rmonize with the assumption, al
ready made in regard to the instincts,
that the different poles of the animal
are already intimated in the unicellu-
lar egg by a corresponding distribution
of the different substances, but it is
not even absolutely necessary that this
separation exists already in the origi-
nal egg cell. 1t is quite possible that
liA4 1llbL1o VI llAC SuDSldllCGS ldhe pace
in the blastula through osmosis, which
lead to a gathering of a specific ento-
dermal substances at a certain place
in the blastula. Here the entoderm is
formed and imagination into the cav
ity of the blastula takes place.
SKELETON Is NOTHING.
The formation of skeleton is moth
ing but the precipitation of CRYSTALS of
certain salts of calcium. The condi-
tions for this are purely physical and
without doubt are determined through
metabolism and OmOtic processes.
Through their action such an increase
in the concentration of the intracellu-
lar or Dericellular liquids is produced
in certain places that these crystals
must be forced. Thus again, as in the
case of instinct, the analysis of the
phenomena renders the assumption of
mysteriously complicated structure in
the egg unnecessary.
Still another field of phenomena
makes it impossible to attempt to lead
back the heredity forms to mysterious
egg-structures of highly complicated
nature. I mean the phenomena of
heteromorphosis. By heteromorphosis
organ by another one which is diff
ferent morphologically and physiolo-
gically. Tubularia, a hydroid. con-
sists of a stem which carries on
one end pOlyp or head and
on the other end a root or foot If one
cuts off the foot and surrounds the
wound with sea water from all sides a
new head is formed instead of a foot.
We thus have an animal which has a
head on each end of it's body But if
we bring the wound in contact with
a solid body. such as the bottom OF
the aquarium, a foot is formed. II
we cut piece out of the stem, which is
only the size of the pOlyp, and sur
round it by water from all sides, a
head is formed at either end, but as
there IS no material left between the
two heads, we thus obtain Janus heads.
without stem and foot.
whenever we are not able to explain
complicated phenomena, we are at first
inclined to imagine that their cause
must be of similar complication to the
phenomenon itself. Thus the idea of
an invisible complicated egg-structure
was adopted in order to explain the
heredity of instincts and forms. and
thus the ideas of mysterious structures
of the gangleonic cells are still held
by many in order to explain the me-
chanism of reflex phenomena and in
stincts. All these attempts fail for the
reason that they tried to explain com
plicated phenomena without having
them analyzed into their simpler con-
stituents. AS long as we consider in
stincts as units which cannot be de-
composed, we must naturally imagine
the heredity of these instincts under
the mental picture of a mysterious
clockwork contained in the egg. But
as soon as we analyze them we are
confronted with very simple phe
nomena which make the idea of a mys-
terious invisible structure unneces-