and in the dried-up Anguillulidæ[1] of Baker and Spallanzani, in the encysted colpoda[2] that a drop of warm water will revive, in the animals exposed by E. Yung and Pictet to a cold of more than a 100° C. below zero, are due to the general arrest of the two forms of assimilation, or to the arrest of the manufacture and utilization of reserve-stuff alone, or finally, to the arrest of protoplasmic assimilation alone. The latter, which is already very restricted in beings in a normal condition whose growth is terminated, may fall to the lowest degree in the being which, having no functional activity, is assimilating nothing. So that, to cut the question short, the experimenter who measures the value of the exchanges between the being and the medium has seldom to do more than decide between little and nothing. Hence his perplexity. But if experiment hesitates, theory affirms: it admits a priori that the movement of protoplasmic assimilation, an essential sign of vitality, is neither checked nor renewed, but proceeds continuously.
Is Nutrition, the Assimilating Synthesis, interrupted?—Nevertheless, there are many reasons for suspending all judgment as to this interpretation. It is questioned by most biologists. According to A. Gautier, the preserved grain of corn and the dried up rotifera are not really alive; they are like clocks in working order, ready to tell the time, but awaiting in absolute repose the first vibration which will set them going. As for the grain, it is the air, heat, and
