Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 80.djvu/16

16 with the egg was of course unknown to primitive or pre-scientific man. Death was assumed to be due to the departure of this "life principle" from the body.

Scientifically, however, individual life begins (in the case of the sea-urchin and possibly in general) with the acceleration of the rate of oxidation in the egg, and this acceleration begins after the destruction of its cortical layer. Life of warm blooded animals—man included—ends with the cessation of oxidation in the body. As soon as oxidations have ceased for some time the surface films of the cells, if they contain enough water and if the temperature is sufficiently high, become permeable for bacteria, and the body is destroyed by microorganisms. The problem of the beginning and end of individual life is physico-chemically clear. It is, therefore, unwarranted to continue the statement that in addition to the acceleration of oxidations the beginning of individual life is determined by the entrance of a metaphysical "life principle" into the egg; and that death is determined, aside from the cessation of oxidations, by the departure of this "principle" from the body. In the case of the evaporation of water we are satisfied with the explanation given by the kinetic theory of gases and do not demand that—to repeat a well-known jest of Huxley—the disappearance of the "aquosity" be also taken into consideration.

It may be stated that the egg is the essential bearer of heredity. We can cause an egg to develop into a larva without sperm, but we can not cause a spermatozoon to develop into a larva without an egg. The spermatozoon can influence the form of the offspring only when the two forms are rather closely related. If the egg of a sea-urchin is fertilized with the sperm from a different species of sea-urchin the larval form has distinct paternal characters. If, however, the eggs of a sea-urchin are fertilized with the sperm of a more remote species, e. g., a star-fish, the result is a sea-urchin larva which possesses no paternal characters, as I found and as Godlewski, Kupelwieser, Hagedoorn and Baltzer were able to confirm. This fact has some bearing upon the further investigation of heredity, inasmuch as it shows that the egg is the main instrument of heredity, while apparently the spermatozoon is restricted in the transmission of characters to the offspring. If the difference between spermatozoon and egg exceeds a certain limit the hereditary effects of the spermatozoon cease and it acts merely as an activator to the egg.

As far as the transmission of paternal characters is concerned, we can say to-day that the view of those authors was correct who, with Boveri, localized this transmission not only in the cell nucleus, but in a