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THE PAPERS OF MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.

Initiated, by

The Martin Luther King, Jr.

Center for Nonviolent Social Change, Inc.

in association with

Stanford University and Emory University

Martin Luther King, J r . and Coretta Scott King on the steps of
Harlem Hospital following his release on 3 October 1958.
Courtesy of Daily Mirror/Corbis-Bettman.
THE PAPERS OF MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.

VOLUME i v :

Symbol of the Movement

January 195J—December 1958

Senior Editor

Clayborne Carson

Volume Editors

Susan Carson
Adrienne Clay
Virginia Shadron
Kieran Taylor

U N I V E R S I T Y OF CALIFORNIA PRESS

Berkeley Los Angeles London

University of California Press
Berkeley and Los Angeles, California

University of California Press, Ltd.

London, England

Writings of Martin Luther King, Jr., © copyright 2000 by the Estate

of Martin Luther King, Jr. Introduction, editorial footnotes, and
apparatus © copyright 2000 by the Martin Luther King, Jr., Papers
Project. © copyright 2000 by the Regents of the University of Cali-
fornia. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or re-
produced in any manner whatsoever without written permission ex-
cept in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and
reviews. For information, address queries as appropriate to:

Reproduction in print or recordings of the works of Martin Luther

King, Jr.: the Estate of Martin Luther King, Jr., in Atlanta, Georgia.

All other queries: Rights Department, University of California Press,

2120 Berkeley Way, Berkeley, California 94720.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

King, Martin Luther, Jr., 1929-1968.
T h e papers of Martin Luther King, Jr.
v. 4. Symbol of the movement, January 1957-December 1958.
Contents: v. 1. Called to serve,January 1929-June 1 9 5 1 — v . 2.
Rediscovering precious values, July 1951—November 1 9 5 5 — v . 3.
Birth of a new age, December 1 9 5 5 - D e c e m b e r 1956.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn 0-520-22231-8 (cloth: alk. paper).
1. Afro-Americans—Civil rights. 2. Civil rights movements—
United States—History—20th century. 3. King, Martin Luther,
Jr., 1929-1968—Archives. 4. United States—Race relations.
I. Carson, Clayborne, 1 9 4 4 - II. Carson, Susan. III. Clay,
Adrienne. IV. Taylor, Kieran. V. Title.
E185.97.K5A2 2000
323'og2—dcai 91-42336
CIP

Manufactured in the United States of America

23 22 21 20 19
8 7 6 5 4 3 2
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum require-
ments of a n s i / n i s o 239.48-1992 (R 1997) (Permanence of Paper)
me, O God, to see that I'm, just a symbol of a movement. .
O God, help me to see that where I stand today,
/ stand because others helped me to stand there
and because the forces of history projected me there.
And this moment would have come in history
even ifM. L. King had never been born.

MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.

ii August 1957
The editors of the Martin Luther King, Jr., Papers Project wish to
acknowledge the generosity of the following major contributors,
without whose support this volume would not have been possible:

Major Contributors
Emory University
Peter B. Kovler
Lilly Endowment
National Endowment for the Humanities
National Historical Publications and Records Commission
Nordson Corporation Foundation
Peninsula Community Foundation
Stanford University
Woodside Summit Group, Inc.

Patrons
Ruth M. Batson Educational Foundation
Peter S. Bing
Greg Crossfield
Mary McKinney Edmonds
Rex C. and Margaret S. Fortune
Edward K. and Eugenia Kaplan
Leonard Merrill Kurz
 Donars
J. Herman Blake
Allen and Dorothy Calvin
Wayne Duckworth
Forums In Black (Second Baptist Church, Los Angeles)
James and Diane Geocaris
James L. and Jewelle T. Gibbs
Carol P. Guyer
Tony Hill
Benson Kanemoto
Kim M. Metters-Hill
Henry P. Organ
Donald T. Phillips
Sallie Reid
James L. and Nanci T. Schram
Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Redwood City
United Church of Los Alamos
 The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Clayborne Carson,
Senior Editor

1. Called to Serve, January 1929 —June 1951

Volume editors: Ralph E. Luker and Penny A. Russell

2. Rediscovering Precious Values, July 1951—November 1955

Volume editors: Ralph E. Luker, Penny A. Russell, and Peter Holloran

3. Birth of a New Age, December 1955— December 1956

Volume editors: Stewart Burns, Susan Carson, Peter Holloran, and
Dana L. H. Powell

4. Symbol of the Movement, January 7957—December 1958

Volume editors: Susan Carson, Adrienne Clay, Virginia Shadron, and
Kieran Taylor
 ADVISORY BOARD

Coretta Scott King (chair)

Christine King Farris
Lerone Bennett, Jr.
Ira Berlin
John W. Blassingame
Samuel Dubois Cook
John Hope Franklin
David J. Garrow
Robert L. Green
Vincent Harding
Louis R. Harlan
Robert A. Hill
Darlene Clark Hine
Bernard Lafayette
John D. Maguire
Otis Moss
Joseph Roberts, Jr.
Preston N. Williams
Harris Wofford
Andrew J. Young
 The publishers gratefully acknowledge the many
individuals and foundations that have contributed to the
publication of the Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr., and
the General Endowment Fund of the Associates of the
University of California Press for its contribution toward
the publication of this volume.

Our special thanks to Maya Angelou, Mary Jane Hewitt,

Sukey Garcetti, Maxine Griggs, Franklin Murphy,
Joan Palevsky, and Marilyn Solomon for their
leadership during the campaign.

Challenge Grant
Times Mirror Foundation

Leadership Grants
The Ahmanson Foundation
AT&T Foundation

Partners
ARCO Foundation
William H. Cosby and Camille O. Cosby
The George Gund Foundation
The Walter and Elise Haas Fund
LEF Foundation
Sally Lilienthal
J. Michael Mahoney
The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
National Historical Publications and Records Commission
Peter Norton Family Foundation
Joan Palevsky
The Ralph M. Parsons Foundation
 Benefactors
Anonymous
BankAmerica Foundation
Fleishhacker Foundation
David Geffen Foundation
Linda Johnson Rice—Johnson Publishing Company
Koret Foundation
Levi Strauss Foundation
Lilly Endowment, Inc.
McDonnell Douglas Foundation
Foundations of the Milken Families
National Endowment for the Humanities
Pacific Telesis Group
Jocelyn, Drew, and Keith Reid
Charles H. Revson Foundation, Inc.
Ernst D. and Eleanor Slate van Lôben Sels Foundation

Patrons
Earl and June Cheit
Berry Gordy—Jobete Music Publishing Co., Inc.
Frances and Kenneth Reid

Sponsors
Jacqueline and Clarence Avant
Edward R. Bradley, Jr.
Francine and Kevin Castner
Esther Gordy Edwards—Motown Museum
Susan and August Frugé
Deborah and Joseph Goldyne
Hugh Hefner
Beatrice and Richard Heggie
Quincy Jones— Quincy Jones Productions
Max Palevsky
The Roth Family Foundation
Sony Corporation of America
 CONTENTS

List of Papers xv

List of Illustrations xxiii

Acknowledgments xxv

Introduction 1

Chronology 39

Editorial Principles and

Practices 57

List of Abbreviations 63

THE PAPERS 71

Calendar of Documents 555

Index 615

Photographs follow p. 69
 THE PAPERS

1 Jan 1957 "Facing the Challenge of a New Age," Address

Delivered at NAACP Emancipation Day Rally 73
4 Jan 1957 To L. Harold DeWolf 89
4 Jan 1957 From A. Philip Randolph 90
7 Jan 1957 To A. Philip Randolph 92
7 Jan 1957 To Gil B. Lloyd 93
7 Jan 1957 Montgomery Improvement Association Press Release,
Bus Protesters Call Southern Negro Leaders Conference
on Transportation and Nonviolent Integration 94
10 Jan 1957 To Robert Johnson 97
11 Jan 1957 From Maxwell M. Rabb 98
11 Jan 1957 To Dwight D. Eisenhower 99
11 Jan 1957 To Richard M. Nixon 101
11 Jan 1957 "A Statement to the South and the Nation,"
Issued by the Southern Negro Leaders Conference
on Transportation and Nonviolent Integration 103
iijanig57 From J. Pius Barbour 107
13 Jan 1957 The Ways of God in the Midst of Glaring Evil,
Sermon Delivered at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church 107
i 4 j a n 1957 Oudine, Address to MIA Mass Meeting
at Bethel Baptist Church 109
18 Jan 1957 To Alfred Hassler 110
22 Jan 1957 From Kwame Nkrumah 112
28 Jan 1957 To Fannie E. Scott 113
28 Jan 1957 "King Says Vision Told Him to Lead Integration Forces" 114
31 Jan 1957 To Dorothy M. Steere 115
1 Feb 1957 Maude L. Ballou to Malcolm X 117
6 Feb 1957 "Nonviolence and Racial Justice" 118
8 Feb 1957 To Clarence L.Jordan 122
10 Feb 1957 "For A l l . . . A Non-Segregated Society," A Message
for Race Relations Sunday 123
10 Feb 1957 Interview by Richard D. HefFner for "The Open Mind" 126
14 Feb 1957 To Dwight D. Eisenhower 132
14 Feb 1957 To Richard M. Nixon 134
14 Feb 1957 From Walter R. McCall 136
14 Feb 1957 From J. E. Nesbitt 137
15 Feb 1957 From John Wesley Dobbs 138
18 Feb 1957 To A. A. Banks, Jr. 140
25 Feb 1957 From William Robert Miller 141
Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
arrangement depending on the form of the particles themselves.
This symmetry may perhaps be due, as has already been suggested,
to induced electrical charges. In discussing Brauer’s observations on
the splitting of the chromatic filament, and the symmetrical
arrangement of the separate granules, in Ascaris megalocephala ,
Lillie235 {181} remarks: “This behaviour is strongly suggestive of the
division of a colloidal particle under the influence of its surface
electrical charge, and of the effects of mutual repulsion in keeping
the products of division apart.” It is also probable that surface-
tensions between the particles and the surrounding protoplasm
would bring about an identical result, and would sufficiently account
for the obvious, and at first sight, very curious, symmetry. We know
that if we float a couple of matches in water they tend to approach
one another, till they lie close together, side by side; and, if we lay
upon a smooth wet plate four matches, half broken across, a
precisely similar attraction brings the four matches together in the
form of a symmetrical cross. Whether one of these, or some other,
be the actual explanation of the phenomenon, it is at least plain that
by some physical cause, some mutual and symmetrical attraction or
repulsion of the particles, we must seek

Fig. 53. Annular chromosomes, formed in the spermatogenesis of the

Mole-cricket. (From Wilson, after Vom Rath.)

to account for the curious symmetry of these so-called “tetrads.” The

remarkable annular chromosomes, shewn in Fig. 53, can also be
easily imitated by means of loops of thread upon a soapy film when
the film within the annulus is broken or its tension reduced.

So far as we have now gone, there is no great difficulty in

pointing to simple and familiar phenomena of a field of force which
are similar, or comparable, to the phenomena which we witness
within the cell. But among these latter phenomena there are others
for which it is not so easy to suggest, in accordance with known
laws, a simple mode of physical causation. It is not at once obvious
how, in any simple system of symmetrical forces, {182} the
chromosomes, which had at first been apparently repelled from the
poles towards the equatorial plane, should then be split asunder, and
should presently be attracted in opposite directions, some to one
pole and some to the other. Remembering that it is not our purpose
to assert that some one particular mode of action is at work, but
merely to shew that there do exist physical forces, or distributions of
force, which are capable of producing the required result, I give the
following suggestive hypothesis, which I owe to my colleague
Professor W. Peddie.
As we have begun by supposing that the nuclear, or
chromosomal matter differs in permeability from the medium, that is
to say the cytoplasm, in which it lies, let us now make the further
assumption that its permeability is variable, and depends upon the
strength of the field .
 Fig. 54.

In Fig. 54, we have a field of force (representing our cell),

consisting of a homogeneous medium, and including two opposite
poles: lines of force are indicated by full lines, and loci of constant
magnitude of force are shewn by dotted lines.
Let us now consider a body whose permeability (µ) depends on
the strength of the field F . At two field-strengths, such as Fa , Fb , let
the permeability of the body be equal to that of the {183} medium,
and let the curved line in Fig. 55 represent generally its permeability
at other field-strengths; and let the outer and inner dotted curves in
Fig. 54 represent respectively the loci of the field-strengths Fb and
Fa . The body if it be placed in the medium within either branch of
the inner curve, or outside the outer curve, will tend to move into
the neighbourhood of the adjacent pole. If it be placed in the region
intermediate to the two dotted curves, it will tend to move towards
regions of weaker field-strength.
 Fig. 55.

The locus Fb is therefore a locus of stable position, towards

which the body tends to move; the locus Fa is a locus of unstable
position, from which it tends to move. If the body were placed
across Fa , it might be torn asunder into two portions, the split
coinciding with the locus Fa .
Suppose a number of such bodies to be scattered throughout the
medium. Let at first the regions Fa and Fb be entirely outside the
space where the bodies are situated: and, in making this supposition
we may, if we please, suppose that the loci which we are calling Fa
and Fb are meanwhile situated somewhat farther from the axis than
in our figure, that (for instance) Fa is situated where we have drawn
Fb , and that Fb is still further out. The bodies then tend towards the
poles; but the tendency may be very small if, in Fig. 55, the curve
and its intersecting straight line do not diverge very far from one
another beyond Fa ; in other {184} words, if, when situated in this
region, the permeability of the bodies is not very much in excess of
that of the medium.
Let the poles now tend to separate farther and farther from one
another, the strength of each pole remaining unaltered; in other
words, let the centrosome-foci recede from one another, as they
actually do, drawing out the spindle-threads between them. The loci
Fa , Fb , will close in to nearer relative distances from the poles. In
doing so, when the locus Fa crosses one of the bodies, the body
may be torn asunder; if the body be of elongated shape, and be
crossed at more points than one, the forces at work will tend to
exaggerate its foldings, and the tendency to rupture is greatest
when Fa is in some median position (Fig. 56).

Fig. 56.

When the locus Fa has passed entirely over the body, the body
tends to move towards regions of weaker force; but when, in turn,
the locus Fb has crossed it, then the body again moves towards
regions of stronger force, that is to say, towards the nearest pole.
And, in thus moving towards the pole, it will do so, as appears
actually to be the case in the dividing cell, along the course of the
outer lines of force, the so-called “mantle-fibres” of the
histologist236.
Such con­si­de­ra­tions as these give general results, easily open to
modification in detail by a change of any of the arbitrary postulates
which have been made for the sake of simplicity. Doubtless there are
many other assumptions which would more or less meet the case;
for instance, that of Ida H. Hyde that, {185} during the active phase of
the chromatin molecule (during which it decomposes and sets free
nucleic acid) it carries a charge opposite to that which it bears
during its resting, or alkaline phase; and that it would accordingly
move towards different poles under the influence of a current,
wandering with its negative charge in an alkaline fluid during its acid
phase to the anode, and to the kathode during its alkaline phase. A
whole field of speculation is opened up when we begin to consider
the cell not merely as a polarised electrical field, but also as an
electrolytic field, full of wandering ions. Indeed it is high time we
reminded ourselves that we have perhaps been dealing too much
with ordinary physical analogies: and that our whole field of force
within the cell is of an order of magnitude where these grosser
analogies may fail to serve us, and might even play us false, or lead
us astray. But our sole object meanwhile, as I have said more than
once, is to demonstrate, by such illustrations as these, that,
whatever be the actual and as yet unknown modus operandi , there
are physical conditions and distributions of force which could
produce just such phenomena of movement as we see taking place
within the living cell. This, and no more, is precisely what Descartes
is said to have claimed for his description of the human body as a
“mechanism237.”

The foregoing account is based on the provisional assumption

that the phenomena of caryokinesis are analogous to, if not identical
with those of a bipolar electrical field; and this comparison, in my
opinion, offers without doubt the best available series of analogies.
But we must on no account omit to mention the fact that some of
Leduc’s diffusion-experiments offer very remarkable analogies to the
diagrammatic phenomena of caryokinesis, as shewn in the annexed
figure238. Here we have two identical (not opposite) poles of osmotic
concentration, formed by placing a drop of indian ink in salt water,
and then on either side of this central drop, a hypertonic drop of salt
solution more lightly coloured. On either side the pigment of the
central drop has been drawn towards the focus nearest to it; but in
the middle line, the pigment {186} is drawn in opposite directions by
equal forces, and so tends to remain undisturbed, in the form of an
“equatorial plate.”
Nor should we omit to take account (however briefly and
inadequately) of a novel and elegant hypothesis put forward by A. B.
Lamb. This hypothesis makes use of a theorem of Bjerknes, to the
effect that synchronously vibrating or pulsating bodies in a liquid
field attract or repel one another according as their oscillations are
identical or opposite in phase. Under such circumstances, true
currents, or hydrodynamic lines of force, are produced, identical in
form with the lines of force of a magnetic field; and other particles
floating, though not necessarily pulsating, in the liquid field, tend to
be attracted or repelled by the pulsating bodies according as they
are lighter or heavier than the surrounding fluid. Moreover (and this
is the most remarkable point of all), the lines of force set up by the
oppositely pulsating bodies are the same as those which are
produced by opposite magnetic poles: though in the former case
repulsion, and in the latter case attraction, takes place between the
two poles239.

Fig. 57. Artificial caryokinesis (after Leduc), for comparison

with Fig. 41, p. 169.

But to return to our general discussion.

While it can scarcely be too often repeated that our enquiry is
not directed towards the solution of physiological problems, save {187}
only in so far as they are inseparable from the problems presented
by the visible con­fi­gur­a­tions of form and structure, and while we try,
as far as possible, to evade the difficult question of what particular
forces are at work when the mere visible forms produced are such
as to leave this an open question, yet in this particular case we have
been drawn into the use of electrical analogies, and we are bound to
justify, if possible, our resort to this particular mode of physical
action. There is an important paper by R. S. Lillie, on the “Electrical
Convection of certain Free Cells and Nuclei240,” which, while I
cannot quote it in direct support of the suggestions which I have
made, yet gives just the evidence we need in order to shew that
electrical forces act upon the constituents of the cell, and that their
action discriminates between the two species of colloids represented
by the cytoplasm and the nuclear chromatin. And the difference is
such that, in the presence of an electrical current, the cell substance
and the nuclei (including sperm-cells) tend to migrate, the former on
the whole with the positive, the latter with the negative stream: a
difference of electrical potential being thus indicated between the
particle and the surrounding medium, just as in the case of minute
suspended particles of various kinds in various feebly conducing
media241. And the electrical difference is doubtless greatest, in the
case of the cell constituents, just at the period of mitosis: when the
chromatin is invariably in its most deeply staining, most strongly
acid, and therefore, presumably, in its most electrically negative
phase. In short, {188} Lillie comes easily to the conclusion that
“electrical theories of mitosis are entitled to more careful
consideration than they have hitherto received.”
Among other investigations, all leading towards the same general
conclusion, namely that differences of electric potential play a great
part in the phenomenon of cell division, I would mention a very
noteworthy paper by Ida H. Hyde242, in which the writer shews
(among other important observations) that not only is there a
measurable difference of potential between the animal and
vegetative poles of a fertilised egg (Fundulus , toad, turtle, etc.), but
that this difference is not constant, but fluctuates, or actually
reverses its direction, periodically, at epochs coinciding with
successive acts of segmentation or other important phases in the
development of the egg243; just as other physical rhythms, for
instance in the production of CO2 , had already been shewn to do.
Hence we shall be by no means surprised to find that the
“materialised” lines of force, which in the earlier stages form the
convergent curves of the spindle, are replaced in the later phases of
caryokinesis by divergent curves, indicating that the two foci, which
are marked out within the field by the divided and reconstituted
nuclei, are now alike in their polarity (Figs. 58, 59).
It is certain, to my mind, that these observations of Miss Hyde’s,
and of Lillie’s, taken together with those of many writers on the
behaviour of colloid particles generally in their relation to an
electrical field, have a close bearing upon the physiological side of
our problem, the full discussion of which lies outside our present
field.

The break-up of the nucleus, already referred to and ascribed to

a diminution of its surface-tension, is accompanied by certain
diffusion phenomena which are sometimes visible to the eye; and
we are reminded of Lord Kelvin’s view that diffusion is implicitly {189}
associated with surface-tension changes, of which the first step is a
minute puckering of the surface-skin, a sort of interdigitation with
the surrounding medium. For instance, Schewiakoff has observed in
Euglypha 244 that, just before the break-up of the nucleus, a system
of rays appears, concentred about it, but having nothing to do with
the polar asters: and during the existence of this striation, the
nucleus enlarges very considerably, evidently by imbibition of fluid
from the surrounding protoplasm. In short, diffusion is at work, hand
in hand with, and as it were in opposition to, the surface-tensions
which define the nucleus. By diffusion, hand in hand with surface-
tension, the alveoli of the nuclear meshwork are formed, enlarged,
and finally ruptured: diffusion sets up the movements which give rise
to the appearance of rays, or striae, around the nucleus: and
through increasing diffusion, and weakening surface-tension, the
rounded outline of the nucleus finally disappears. {190}
 Fig. 58. Final stage in the first seg­men­ta­tion Fig. 59. Diagram of field
of the egg of Cere­brat­u­lus. (From Pre­nant, after of force with two similar
Coe.)245 poles.

As we study these manifold phenomena, in the individual cases

of particular plants and animals, we recognise a close identity of
type, coupled with almost endless variation of specific detail; and in
particular, the order of succession in which certain of the phenomena
occur is variable and irregular. The precise order of the phenomena,
the time of longitudinal and of transverse fission of the chromatin
thread, of the break-up of the nuclear wall, and so forth, will depend
upon various minor contingencies and “interferences.” And it is
worthy of particular note that these variations, in the order of events
and in other subordinate details, while doubtless attributable to
specific physical conditions, would seem to be without any obvious
clas­si­fi­ca­tory value or other biological significance246.

As regards the actual mechanical division of the cell into two

halves, we shall see presently that, in certain cases, such as that of
a long cylindrical filament, surface-tension, and what is known as the
principle of “minimal area,” go a long way to explain the mechanical
process of division; and in all cells whatsoever, the process of
division must somehow be explained as the result of a conflict
between surface-tension and its opposing forces. But in such a case
as our spherical cell, it is not very easy to see what physical cause is
at work to disturb its equi­lib­rium and its integrity.
The fact that, when actual division of the cell takes place, it does
so at right angles to the polar axis and precisely in the direction of
the equatorial plane, would lead us to suspect that the new surface
formed in the equatorial plane sets up an annular tension, directed
inwards, where it meets the outer surface layer of the cell itself. But
at this point, the problem becomes more complicated. Before we
could hope to comprehend it, we should have not only to enquire
into the potential distribution at the surface of the cell in relation to
that which we have seen to exist in its interior, but we should
probably also have to take account of the differences of potential
which the material arrangements along the lines of force must
themselves tend to produce. Only {191} thus could we approach a
comprehension of the balance of forces which cohesion, friction,
capillarity and electrical distribution combine to set up.
The manner in which we regard the phenomenon would seem to
turn, in great measure, upon whether or no we are justified in
assuming that, in the liquid surface-film of a minute spherical cell,
local, and symmetrically localised, differences of surface-tension are
likely to occur. If not, then changes in the conformation of the cell
such as lead immediately to its division must be ascribed not to local
changes in its surface-tension, but rather to direct changes in
internal pressure, or to mechanical forces due to an induced surface-
distribution of electrical potential.
It has seemed otherwise to many writers, and we have a number
of theories of cell division which are all based directly on inequalities
or asymmetry of surface-tension. For instance, Bütschli suggested,
some forty years ago247, that cell division is brought about by an
increase of surface-tension in the equatorial region of the cell. This
explanation, however, can scarcely hold; for it would seem that such
an increase of surface-tension in the equatorial plane would lead to
the cell becoming flattened out into a disc, with a sharply curved
equatorial edge, and to a streaming of material towards the equator.
In 1895, Loeb shewed that the streaming went on from the equator
towards the divided nuclei, and he supposed that the violence of
these streaming movements brought about actual division of the
cell: a hypothesis which was adopted by many other
physiologists248. This streaming movement would suggest, as
Robertson has pointed out, a diminution of surface-tension in the
region of the equator. Now Quincke has shewn that the formation of
soaps at the surface of an oil-droplet results in a diminution of the
surface-tension of the latter; and that if the saponification be local,
that part of the surface tends to spread. By laying a thread
moistened with a dilute solution of caustic alkali, or even merely
smeared with soap, across a drop of oil, Robertson has further
shewn that the drop at once divides into two: the edges of the drop,
that is to say the ends of the {192} diameter across which the thread
lies, recede from the thread, so forming a notch at each end of the
diameter, while violent streaming motions are set up at the surface,
away from the thread in the direction of the two opposite poles.
Robertson249 suggests, accordingly, that the division of the cell is
actually brought about by a lowering of the equatorial surface-
tension, and that this in turn is due to a chemical action, such as a
liberation of cholin, or of soaps of cholin, through the splitting of
lecithin in nuclear synthesis.
But purely chemical changes are not of necessity the
fundamental cause of alteration in the surface-tension of the egg, for
the action of electrolytes on surface-tension is now well known and
easily demonstrated. So, according to other views than those with
which we have been dealing, electrical charges are sufficient in
themselves to account for alterations of surface-tension; while these
in turn account for that protoplasmic streaming which, as so many
investigators agree, initiates the segmentation of the egg250. A great
part of our difficulty arises from the fact that in such a case as this
the various phenomena are so entangled and apparently concurrent
that it is hard to say which initiates another, and to which this or that
secondary phenomenon may be considered due. Of recent years the
phenomenon of adsorption has been adduced (as we have already
briefly said) in order to account for many of the events and
appearances which are associated with the asymmetry, and lead
towards the division, of the cell. But our short discussion of this
phenomenon may be reserved for another chapter.
However, we are not directly concerned here with the
phenomena of segmentation or cell division in themselves, except
only in so far as visible changes of form are capable of easy and
obvious correlation with the play of force. The very fact of
“development” indicates that, while it lasts, the equi­lib­rium of the
egg is never complete251. And we may simply conclude the {193}
matter by saying that, if you have caryokinetic figures developing
inside the cell, that of itself indicates that the dynamic system and
the localised forces arising from it are in continual alteration; and,
consequently, changes in the outward configuration of the system
are bound to take place.

As regards the phenomena of fertilisation,—of the union of the

spermatozoon with the “pronucleus” of the egg,—we might study
these also in illustration, up to a certain point, of the polarised forces
which are manifestly at work. But we shall merely take, as a single
illustration, the paths of the male and female pronuclei, as they
travel to their ultimate meeting place.
The spermatozoon, when within a very short distance of the egg-
cell, is attracted by it. Of the nature of this attractive force we have
no certain knowledge, though we would seem to have a pregnant
hint in Loeb’s discovery that, in the neighbourhood of other
substances, such even as a fragment, or bead, of glass, the
spermatozoon undergoes a similar attraction. But, whatever the
force may be, it is one acting normally to the surface of the ovum,
and accordingly, after entry, the sperm-nucleus points straight
towards the centre of the egg; from the fact that other spermatozoa,
subsequent to the first, fail to effect an entry, we may safely
conclude that an immediate consequence of the entry of the
spermatozoon is an increase in the surface-tension of the egg252.
Somewhere or other, near or far away, within the egg, lies its own
nuclear body, the so-called female pronucleus, and we find after a
while that this has fused with the head of the spermatozoon (or
male pronucleus), and that the body resulting from their fusion has
come to occupy the centre of the egg. This must be due (as
Whitman pointed out long ago) to a force of attraction acting
between the two bodies, and another force acting upon one or other
or both in the direction of the centre of the cell. Did we know the
magnitude of these several forces, it would be a very easy task to
calculate the precise path which the two pronuclei would follow,
leading to conjugation and the central {194} position. As we do not
know the magnitude, but only the direction, of these forces we can
only make a general statement: (1) the paths of both moving bodies
will lie wholly within a plane triangle drawn between the two bodies
and the centre of the cell; (2) unless the two bodies happen to lie,
to begin with, precisely on a diameter of the cell, their paths until
they meet one another will be curved paths, the convexity of the
curve being towards the straight line joining the two bodies; (3) the
two bodies will meet a little before they reach the centre; and,
having met and fused, will travel on to reach the centre in a straight
line. The actual study and observation of the path followed is not
very easy, owing to the fact that what we usually see is not the path
itself, but only a projection of the path upon the plane of the
microscope; but the curved path is particularly well seen in the frog’s
egg, where the path of the spermatozoon is marked by a little streak
of brown pigment, and the fact of the meeting of the pronuclei
before reaching the centre has been repeatedly seen by many
observers.
The problem is nothing else than a particular case of the famous
problem of three bodies, which has so occupied the astronomers;
and it is obvious that the foregoing brief description is very far from
including all possible cases. Many of these are particularly described
in the works of Fol, Roux, Whitman and others253.

The intracellular phenomena of which we have now spoken have

assumed immense importance in biological literature and discussion
during the last forty years; but it is open to us to doubt whether
they will be found in the end to possess more than a remote and
secondary biological significance. Most, if not all of them, would
seem to follow immediately and inevitably from very simple
assumptions as to the physical constitution of the cell, and from an
extremely simple distribution of polarised forces within it. We have
already seen that how a thing grows, and what it grows into, is a
dynamic and not a merely material problem; so far as the material
substance is concerned, it is so only by reason {195} of the chemical,
electrical or other forces which are associated with it. But there is
another consideration which would lead us to suspect that many
features in the structure and configuration of the cell are of very
secondary biological importance; and that is, the great variation to
which these phenomena are subject in similar or closely related
organisms, and the apparent impossibility of correlating them with
the peculiarities of the organism as a whole. “Comparative study has
shewn that almost every detail of the processes (of mitosis)
described above is subject to variation in different forms of cells254.”
A multitude of cells divide to the accompaniment of caryokinetic
phenomena; but others do so without any visible caryokinesis at all.
Sometimes the polarised field of force is within, sometimes it is
adjacent to, and at other times it lies remote from the nucleus. The
distribution of potential is very often symmetrical and bipolar, as in
the case described; but a less symmetrical distribution often occurs,
with the result that we have, for a time at least, numerous centres
of force, instead of the two main correlated poles: this is the simple
explanation of the numerous stellate figures, or “Strahlungen,” which
have been described in certain eggs, such as those of Chaetopterus .
In one and the same species of worm (Ascaris megalocephala ), one
group or two groups of chromosomes may be present. And
remarkably constant, in general, as the number of chromosomes in
any one species undoubtedly is, yet we must not forget that, in
plants and animals alike, the whole range of observed numbers is
but a small one; for (as regards the germ-nuclei) few organisms
have less than six chromosomes, and fewer still have more than
sixteen255. In closely related animals, such as various species of
Copepods, and even in the same species of worm or insect, the form
of the chromosomes, and their arrangement in relation to the
nuclear spindle, have been found to differ in the various ways
alluded to above. In short, there seem to be strong grounds for
believing that these and many similar phenomena are in no way
specifically related to the particular organism in which they have {196}
been observed, and are not even specially and indisputably
connected with the organism as such. They include such
manifestations of the physical forces, in their various permutations
and combinations, as may also be witnessed, under appropriate
conditions, in non-living things.
When we attempt to separate our purely morphological or
“purely embryological” studies from physiological and physical
investigations, we tend ipso facto to regard each particular structure
and configuration as an attribute, or a particular “character,” of this
or that particular organism. From this assumption we are apt to go
on to the drawing of new conclusions or the framing of new theories
as to the ancestral history, the clas­si­fi­ca­tory position, the natural
affinities of the several organisms: in fact, to apply our
embryological knowledge mainly, and at times exclusively, to the
study of phylogeny . When we find, as we are not long of finding,
that our phylogenetic hypotheses, as drawn from embryology,
become complex and unwieldy, we are nevertheless reluctant to
admit that the whole method, with its fundamental postulates, is at
fault. And yet nothing short of this would seem to be the case, in
regard to the earlier phases at least of embryonic development. All
the evidence at hand goes, as it seems to me, to shew that
embryological data, prior to and even long after the epoch of
segmentation, are essentially a subject for physiological and physical
in­ves­ti­ga­tion and have but the very slightest link with the problems
of systematic or zoological clas­si­fi­ca­tion. Comparative embryology
has its own facts to classify, and its own methods and principles of
clas­si­fi­ca­tion. Thus we may classify eggs according to the presence
or absence, the paucity or abundance, of their associated food-yolk,
the chromosomes according to their form and their number, the
segmentation according to its various “types,” radial, bilateral, spiral,
and so forth. But we have little right to expect, and in point of fact
we shall very seldom and (as it were) only accidentally find, that
these embryological categories coincide with the lines of “natural” or
“phylogenetic” clas­si­fi­ca­tion which have been arrived at by the
systematic zoologist.

The cell, which Goodsir spoke of as a “centre of force,” is in {197}

reality a “sphere of action” of certain more or less localised forces;
and of these, surface-tension is the particular force which is
especially responsible for giving to the cell its outline and its
morphological individuality. The partially segmented differs from the
totally segmented egg, the unicellular Infusorian from the minute
multicellular Turbellarian, in the intensity and the range of those
surface-tensions which in the one case succeed and in the other fail
to form a visible separation between the “cells.” Adam Sedgwick
used to call attention to the fact that very often, even in eggs that
appear to be totally segmented, it is yet impossible to discover an
actual separation or cleavage, through and through between the
cells which on the surface of the egg are so clearly delimited; so far
and no farther have the physical forces effectuated a visible
“cleavage.” The vacuolation of the protoplasm in Actinophrys or
Actinosphaerium is due to localised surface-tensions, quite
irrespective of the multinuclear nature of the latter organism. In
short, the boundary walls due to surface-tension may be present or
may be absent with or without the delimination of the other specific
fields of force which are usually correlated with these boundaries
and with the independent individuality of the cells. What we may
safely admit, however, is that one effect of these circumscribed fields
of force is usually such a separation or segregation of the
protoplasmic constituents, the more fluid from the less fluid and so
forth, as to give a field where surface-tension may do its work and
bring a visible boundary into being. When the formation of a
“surface” is once effected, its physical condition, or phase, will be
bound to differ notably from that of the interior of the cell, and
under appropriate chemical conditions the formation of an actual
cell-wall, cellulose or other, is easily intelligible. To this subject we
shall return again, in another chapter.
From the moment that we enter on a dynamical conception of
the cell, we perceive that the old debates were in vain as to what
visible portions of the cell were active or passive, living or non-living.
For the manifestations of force can only be due to the interaction of
the various parts, to the transference of energy from one to another.
Certain properties may be manifested, certain functions may be
carried on, by the protoplasm apart {198} from the nucleus; but the
interaction of the two is necessary, that other and more important
properties or functions may be manifested. We know, for instance,
that portions of an Infusorian are incapable of regenerating lost
parts in the absence of a nucleus, while nucleated pieces soon
regain the specific form of the organism: and we are told that
reproduction by fission cannot be initiated , though apparently all its
later steps can be carried on, independently of nuclear action. Nor,
as Verworn pointed out, can the nucleus possibly be regarded as the
“sole vehicle of inheritance,” since only in the conjunction of cell and
nucleus do we find the essentials of cell-life. “Kern und Protoplasma
sind nur vereint lebensfähig,” as Nussbaum said. Indeed we may,
with E. B. Wilson, go further, and say that “the terms ‘nucleus’ and
‘cell-body’ should probably be regarded as only topographical
expressions denoting two differentiated areas in a common
structural basis.”
Endless discussion has taken place regarding the centrosome,
some holding that it is a specific and essential structure, a
permanent corpuscle derived from a similar pre-existing corpuscle, a
“fertilising element” in the spermatozoon, a special “organ of cell-
division,” a material “dynamic centre” of the cell (as Van Beneden
and Boveri call it); while on the other hand, it is pointed out that
many cells live and multiply without any visible centrosomes, that a
centrosome may disappear and be created anew, and even that
under artificial conditions abnormal chemical stimuli may lead to the
formation of new centrosomes. We may safely take it that the
centrosome, or the “attraction sphere,” is essentially a “centre of
force,” and that this dynamic centre may or may not be constituted
by (but will be very apt to produce) a concrete and visible
concentration of matter.
It is far from correct to say, as is often done, that the cell-wall, or
cell-membrane, belongs “to the passive products of protoplasm
rather than to the living cell itself”; or to say that in the animal cell,
the cell-wall, because it is “slightly developed,” is relatively
unimportant compared with the important role which it assumes in
plants. On the contrary, it is quite certain that, whether visibly
differentiated into a semi-permeable membrane, or merely
constituted by a liquid film, the surface of the cell is the seat of {199}
important forces, capillary and electrical, which play an essential part
in the dynamics of the cell. Even in the thickened, largely solidified
cellulose wall of the plant-cell, apart from the mechanical resistances
which it affords, the osmotic forces developed in connection with it
are of essential importance.
But if the cell acts, after this fashion, as a whole, each part
interacting of necessity with the rest, the same is certainly true of
the entire multicellular organism: as Schwann said of old, in very
precise and adequate words, “the whole organism subsists only by
means of the reciprocal action of the single elementary parts256.”
As Wilson says again, “the physiological autonomy of the
individual cell falls into the background ... and the apparently
composite character which the multicellular organism may exhibit is
owing to a secondary distribution of its energies among local centres
of action257.”
It is here that the homology breaks down which is so often
drawn, and overdrawn, between the unicellular organism and the
individual cell of the metazoon258.
Whitman, Adam Sedgwick259, and others have lost no
opportunity of warning us against a too literal acceptation of the
cell-theory, against the view that the multicellular organism is a
colony (or, as Haeckel called it (in the case of the plant), a
“republic”) of independent units of life260. As Goethe said long ago,
“Das lebendige ist zwar in Elemente {200} zerlegt, aber man kann es
aus diesen nicht wieder zusammenstellen und beleben;” the dictum
of the Cellularpathologie being just the opposite, “Jedes Thier
erscheint als eine Summe vitaler Einheiten, von denen jede den
vollen Charakter des Lebens an sich trägt .”
Hofmeister and Sachs have taught us that in the plant the
growth of the mass, the growth of the organ, is the primary fact,
that “cell formation is a phenomenon very general in organic life, but
still only of secondary significance.” “Comparative embryology” says
Whitman, “reminds us at every turn that the organism dominates
cell-formation, using for the same purpose one, several, or many
cells, massing its material and directing its movements and shaping
its organs, as if cells did not exist261.” So Rauber declared that, in
the whole world of organisms, “das Ganze liefert die Theile, nicht die
Theile das Ganze: letzteres setzt die Theile zusammen, nicht diese
jenes262.” And on the botanical side De Bary has summed up the
matter in an aphorism, “Die Pflanze bildet Zellen, nicht die Zelle
bildet Pflanzen.”
Discussed almost wholly from the concrete, or morphological
point of view, the question has for the most part been made to turn
on whether actual protoplasmic continuity can be demonstrated
between one cell and another, whether the organism be an actual
reticulum, or syncytium. But from the dynamical point of view the
question is much simpler. We then deal not with material continuity,
not with little bridges of connecting protoplasm, but with a continuity
of forces, a comprehensive field of force, which runs through and
through the entire organism and is by no means restricted in its
passage to a protoplasmic continuum. And such a continuous field of
force, somehow shaping the whole organism, independently of the
number, magnitude and form of the individual cells, which enter, like
a froth, into its fabric, seems to me certainly and obviously to exist.
As Whitman says, “the fact that physiological unity is not broken by
cell-boundaries is confirmed in so many ways that it must be
accepted as one of the fundamental truths of biology263.”
 CHAPTER V
THE FORMS OF CELLS

Protoplasm, as we have already said, is a fluid or rather a

semifluid substance, and we need not pause here to attempt to
describe the particular properties of the semifluid, colloid, or jelly-
like substances to which it is allied; we should find it no easy matter.
Nor need we appeal to precise theoretical definitions of fluidity, lest
we come into a debateable land. It is in the most general sense that
protoplasm is “fluid.” As Graham said (of colloid matter in general),
“its softness partakes of fluidity , and enables the colloid to become
a vehicle for liquid diffusion, like water itself264.” When we can deal
with protoplasm in sufficient quantity we see it flow; particles move
freely through it, air-bubbles and liquid droplets shew round or
spherical within it; and we shall have much to say about other
phenomena manifested by its own surface, which are those
especially char­ac­ter­is­tic of liquids. It may encompass and contain
solid bodies, and it may “secrete” within or around itself solid
substances; and very often in the complex living organism these
solid substances formed by the living protoplasm, like shell or nail or
horn or feather, may remain when the protoplasm which formed
them is dead and gone; but the protoplasm itself is fluid or
semifluid, and accordingly permits of free (though not necessarily
rapid) diffusion and easy convection of particles within itself. This
simple fact is of elementary importance in connection with form, and
with what appear at first sight to be common char­ac­teris­tics or
peculiarities of the forms of living things.
 The older naturalists, in discussing the differences between
inorganic and organic bodies, laid stress upon the fact or statement
that the former grow by “agglutination,” and the latter by {202} what
they termed “intussusception.” The contrast is true, rather, of solid
as compared with jelly-like bodies of all kinds, living or dead, the
great majority of which as it so happens, but by no means all, are of
organic origin.
A crystal “grows” by deposition of new molecules, one by one
and layer by layer, superimposed or aggregated upon the solid
substratum already formed. Each particle would seem to be
influenced, practically speaking, only by the particles in its
immediate neighbourhood, and to be in a state of freedom and
independence from the influence, either direct or indirect, of its
remoter neighbours. As Lord Kelvin and others have explained the
formation and the resulting forms of crystals, so we believe that
each added particle takes up its position in relation to its immediate
neighbours already arranged, generally in the holes and corners that
their arrangement leaves, and in closest contact with the greatest
number265. And hence we may repeat or imitate this process of
arrangement, with great or apparently even with precise accuracy
(in the case of the simpler crystalline systems), by piling up spherical
pills or grains of shot. In so doing, we must have regard to the fact
that each particle must drop into the place where it can go most
easily, or where no easier place offers. In more technical language,
each particle is free to take up, and does take up, its position of
least potential energy relative to those already deposited; in other
words, for each particle motion is induced until the energy of the
system is so distributed that no tendency or resultant force remains
to move it more. The application of this principle has been shewn to
lead to the production of planes 266 (in all cases where by the
limitation of material, surfaces must occur); and where we have
planes, straight edges and solid angles must obviously also occur;
and, if equi­lib­rium is {203} to follow, must occur symmetrically. Our
piling up of shot, or manufacture of mimic crystals, gives us visible
demonstration that the result is actually to obtain, as in the natural
crystal, plane surfaces and sharp angles, symmetrically disposed.
But the living cell grows in a totally different way, very much as a
piece of glue swells up in water, by “imbibition,” or by
interpenetration into and throughout its entire substance. The
semifluid colloid mass takes up water, partly to combine chemically
with its individual molecules267, partly by physical diffusion into the
interstices between these molecules, and partly, as it would seem, in
other ways; so that the entire phenomenon is a very complex and
even an obscure one. But, so far as we are concerned, the net result
is a very simple one. For the equi­lib­rium or tendency to equi­lib­rium
of fluid pressure in all parts of its interior while the process of
imbibition is going on, the constant rearrangement of its fluid mass,
the contrast in short with the crystalline method of growth where
each particle comes to rest to move (relatively to the whole) no
more, lead the mass of jelly to swell up, very much as a bladder into
which we blow air, and so, by a graded and harmonious distribution
of forces, to assume everywhere a rounded and more or less bubble-
like external form268. So, when the same school of older naturalists
called attention to a new distinction or contrast of form between the
organic and inorganic objects, in that the contours of the former
tended to roundness and curvature, and those of the latter to be
bounded by straight lines, planes and sharp angles, we see that this
contrast was not a new and different one, but only another aspect of
their former statement, and an immediate consequence of the
difference between the processes of agglutination and
intussusception.
This common and general contrast between the form of the
crystal on the one hand, and of the colloid or of the organism on the
other, must by no means be pressed too far. For Lehmann, {204} in his
great work on so-called Fluid Crystals269, to which we shall
afterwards return, has shewn how, under certain circumstances,
surface-tension phenomena may coexist with cry­stal­li­sa­tion, and
produce a form of minimal potential which is a resultant of both: the
fact being that the bonds maintaining the crystalline arrangement
are now so much looser than in the solid condition that the tendency
to least total surface-area is capable of being satisfied. Thus the
phenomenon of “liquid cry­stal­li­sa­tion” does not destroy the
distinction between crystalline and colloidal forms, but gives added
unity and continuity to the whole series of phenomena270. Lehmann
has also demonstrated phenomena within the crystal, known for
instance as transcry­stal­li­sa­tion, which shew us that we must not
speak unguardedly of the growth of crystals as limited to deposition
upon a surface, and Bütschli has already pointed out the possible
great importance to the biologist of the various phenomena which
Lehmann has described271.
So far then, as growth goes on, unaffected by pressure or other
external force, the fluidity of protoplasm, its mobility internal and
external, and the manner in which particles move with comparative
freedom from place to place within, all manifestly tend to the
production of swelling, rounded surfaces, and to their great
predominance over plane surfaces in the contour of the organism.
These rounded contours will tend to be preserved, for a while, in the
case of naked protoplasm by its viscosity, and in the presence of a
cell-wall by its very lack of fluidity. In a general way, the presence of
curved boundary surfaces will be especially obvious in the unicellular
organisms, and still more generally in the external forms of all
organisms; and wherever mutual pressure between adjacent cells, or
other adjacent parts, has not come into play to flatten the rounded
surfaces into planes.
But the rounded contours that are assumed and exhibited by {205}
a piece of hard glue, when we throw it into water and see it expand
as it sucks the water up, are not nearly so regular or so beautiful as
are those which appear when we blow a bubble, or form a drop, or
pour water into a more or less elastic bag. For these curving
contours depend upon the properties of the bag itself, of the film or
membrane that contains the mobile gas, or that contains or bounds
the mobile liquid mass. And hereby, in the case of the fluid or
semifluid mass, we are introduced to the subject of surface tension :
of which indeed we have spoken in the preceding chapter, but which
we must now examine with greater care.

Among the forces which determine the forms of cells, whether

they be solitary or arranged in contact with one another, this force of
surface-tension is certainly of great, and is probably of paramount
importance. But while we shall try to separate out the phenomena
which are directly due to it, we must not forget that, in each
particular case, the actual conformation which we study may be, and
usually is, the more or less complex resultant of surface tension
acting together with gravity, mechanical pressure, osmosis, or other
physical forces.
Surface tension is that force by which we explain the form of a
drop or of a bubble, of the surfaces external and internal of a “froth”
or collocation of bubbles, and of many other things of like nature
and in like circumstances272. It is a property of liquids (in the sense
at least with which our subject is concerned), and it is manifested at
or very near the surface, where the liquid comes into contact with
another liquid, a solid or a gas. We note here that the term surface
is to be interpreted in a wide sense; for wherever we have solid
particles imbedded in a fluid, wherever we have a non-homogeneous
fluid or semi-fluid such as a particle {206} of protoplasm, wherever we
have the presence of “impurities,” as in a mass of molten metal,
there we have always to bear in mind the existence of “surfaces”
and of surface tensions, not only on the exterior of the mass but
also throughout its interstices, wherever like meets unlike.
Surface tension is due to molecular force, to force that is to say
arising from the action of one molecule upon another, and it is
accordingly exerted throughout a small thickness of material,
comparable to the range of the molecular forces. We imagine that
within the interior of the liquid mass such molecular interactions
negative one another: but that at and near the free surface, within a
layer or film ap­prox­im
­ ate­ly equal to the range of the molecular force,
there must be a lack of such equi­lib­rium and consequently a
manifestation of force.
 The action of the molecular forces has been variously explained.
But one simple explanation (or mode of statement) is that the
molecules of the surface layer (whose thickness is definite and
constant) are being constantly attracted into the interior by those
which are more deeply situated, and that consequently, as molecules
keep quitting the surface for the interior, the bulk of the latter
increases while the surface diminishes; and the process continues till
the surface itself has become a minimum, the surface-shrinkage
exhibiting itself as a surface-tension . This is a sufficient description
of the phenomenon in cases where a portion of liquid is subject to
no other than its own molecular forces , and (since the sphere has,
of all solids, the smallest surface for a given volume) it accounts for
the spherical form of the raindrop, of the grain of shot, or of the
living cell in many simple organisms. It accounts also, as we shall
presently see, for a great number of much more complicated forms,
manifested under less simple conditions.
Let us here briefly note that surface tension is, in itself, a
comparatively small force, and easily measurable: for instance that
of water is equivalent to but a few grains per linear inch, or a few
grammes per metre. But this small tension, when it exists in a
curved surface of very great curvature, gives rise to a very great
pressure directed towards the centre of curvature. We can easily
calculate this pressure, and so satisfy ourselves that, when the
radius of curvature is of molecular dimensions, the {207} pressure is of
the magnitude of thousands of atmospheres,—a conclusion which is
supported by other physical con­si­de­ra­tions.
The contraction of a liquid surface and other phenomena of
surface tension involve the doing of work, and the power to do work
is what we call energy. It is obvious, in such a simple case as we
have just considered, that the whole energy of the system is diffused
throughout its molecules; but of this whole stock of energy it is only
that part which comes into play at or very near to the surface which
normally manifests itself in work, and hence we may speak (though
the term is open to some objections) of a specific surface energy .
The consideration of surface energy, and of the manner in which its