Those who attempt to bisect this vital unit, divide it up into one fractional part after another, until it shall represent a million bioplastic workers in as many different cells, are committing the same sort of folly--in principle at least, if not in practice--as that which led the simple-minded daughters of Pelias to cut up their father, in the expectation of boiling the old bioplasts into new, and then, by the cunning aid of Medea, who directed the operation, reuniting them into the one Peliastic-unit they so much delighted to honor. But this first and only recorded attempt at differentiating a vital unit disastrously failed, as the reader of ancient myths well knows, although the experiment was conducted by the most careful and loving hands. The necessary chemical re-agents to reproduce life, as well as the necessary processes of producing it _de novo_ have not yet been ascertained, nor is it likely they ever will be. And herein lies the most marked distinction between crystallizable matter and living substance. And yet there is no evidence that the vital principle perishes in the destruction of its temporary organism. It is not the material seed that germinates, but the vital principle it contains, bursting forth from its environment into newness of life. All that can be alleged of either boiled or calcined seeds is, that the material substances of which they were composed are so changed in their chemical constituents, or molecular adjustment, that they are no longer capable of developing, or being developed, into a living organism. "Principles never die," and this is as true of the vital principles in nature, as those obtaining in ethics and morals. Were it possible to restore the exact chemical conditions and constituent particles of the boiled or calcined seed, there is no more doubt that nature would respond to the environing conditions, and give forth the proper expression of plant-life, than there is that crystals of spar would make their appearance in an overcharged bath chemically prepared for that purpose. It is not the albuminous substance enclosed in the seed, but the vital principle therein--that continuously imparted to nature from the great vital fountain of the universe--which burgeons forth into life whenever and wherever the required conditions obtain.