If molecular forces are so combined in an inorganic substratum that spontaneous formation of albumen takes place, then by the combination of the micellae the primordial plasma masses of spontaneous generation are given. Within these plasma masses the production of albumen goes on more easily under the influence of their molecular forces than in the liquid without. Hence the compounds present in the organic substratum and capable of forming albumen enter preferably into the masses of plasma, and by intussusception of micellae of albumen, cause growth. Here life exists in its simplest form. (See page 47.) Spontaneous generation presupposes the origin of plasma-micellae from molecules, and hence cannot be brought about by solutions of albumens or peptones, since these are micellar solutions. Life presupposes the intussusception of plasma-micellae; hence it ceases as soon as the arrangement of micellae is so far disordered by injurious influences that that process of growth becomes impossible. The resulting organism must be perfectly simple, a mass of plasma with micellae as yet unarranged, because any organization without a preceding organizing activity is inconceivable. For this reason known organisms cannot have orginated spontaneously; a kingdom of simpler beings must have preceded them (_Probien_--the sub-organic kingdom). The growth of the masses of plasma continues as long as the conditions of nutrition are favorable. If these become unfavorable, a resting period (latent life) or partial or total death occurs, according to circumstances (as lack of nutritive material, lowering of temperature, comparative exsiccation). The growth of plants and animals is nothing else than the continuation of the growth begun in the primordial plasma. This growth still continues wherever the primordial plasma exists. 4. PARTIAL DEATH OF THE INDIVIDUAL: REPRODUCTION. Since the primordial masses of plasma continue to attract nutritive materials indefinitely and apply them to growth, the nutritive materials are used up in one place and another and the substance which is no longer nourished is in great measure disintegrated. A general condition of equilibrium now sets in, in which the viable plasma masses continue to gain just as much in growth as there is dead plasma broken down and changed back into the original nutritive materials. In the primordial condition this balancing process is irregular and accidental and remains so even later in many of the lowest organisms. Little by little it becomes phylogenetically more regular by individuals attaining to a more definite size and term of life, while only the germs detached from them remain viable. This phenomenon known as reproduction has a double origin.