- phytes and the protozoa situated one degree lower in
the scale than the infusoria, we must admit the possibility of that perfect and continuous equilibrium which would save them from senile decrepitude. And it is quite understood that this privilege remains subordinated to the perfect constancy of the appropriate medium. If the latter changes, the equilibrium is broken, the small insensible perturbations of nutrition accumulate, vital activity decays, and in sole consequence of the imperfection of the extrinsic conditions or of the medium, the living being finds itself once more dragged down to decay and to death.
Immortal Elements of the Metazoa.—All the preceding facts and considerations refer to isolated cells, to monocellular beings. But, and this is what makes these truths so interesting, they may be extended to all cells grouped in collectivity—i.e., to all the animals and living beings that we know. In the complicated edifice of the organism, the anatomical elements, at any rate the least differentiated, would have a continual brevet of immortality. Generally speaking, this would be the case for the egg, for the sexual elements, and perhaps, too, for the white globules of the blood, the leucocytes. And, further, around each of these elements must be realized the invariably perfect medium which is the necessary condition. This does not take place.
Elements in Accidental and Remediable Death.—As for the other elements, they are like the infusoria, but without the resource of conjugation. The ambient medium becomes exhausted and intoxicated around each cell, in consequence of the accidents which happen to the other cells. Each therefore
