Like a warm-up exercise, comparatively speaking

Usage examples of simplest.

In the simplest case, that of the unicellular animals, the cell divides, giving rise to two animals, each of which divides again, producing four, and these again, giving eight, etc.

Here we will concentrate on the simplest independent pronominal elements.

It might be inferred that the proper method of study would be to confine our attention largely to the simplest forms of life, since the problems would be here less complicated, and therefore of easier solution.

But apparently the process is of the simplest character and involves no greater mystery than chemical affinity.

We may either direct our attention to the simplest organisms where all secondary machinery is wanting, or to the smallest parts into which the tissues of higher organisms can be resolved and yet retain their life properties.

In either way we may hope to find living phenomena in its simplest form independent of secondary machinery.

In the simplest form of life in which vital manifestations are found are we to attribute these properties simply to chemical forces of the living substance, or must we here too attribute them to the action of a complicated machinery?

But suppose, on the other hand, that we find this simplest bit of living matter is not a chemical compound, but is in itself a complicated machine.

Suppose that, after reducing this vital substance to its simplest type, we find that the substance with which we are dealing not only has complex chemical structure, but that it also possesses a large number of structural parts adapted to each other in such a way as to work together in the form of an intricate mechanism.

The problem of the origin of the simplest form of life would then be no longer one of chemical but one of mechanical evolution.

It is plain then that the question of whether we can attribute the properties of the simplest type of life to chemical composition or to mechanical structure is more than a formal one.

It was the simplest thing that had life, and indeed the only thing that had life, for there is no life outside of cells and protoplasm.

While the study of plants and animals was showing scientists that natural forces would explain the origin of more complex types from simpler ones through the law of natural selection, here in this conception of protoplasm was a theory which promised to show how the simplest forms may have been derived from the non-living.

It is not protoplasm, but cell substance, plus cell nucleus, which forms the simplest basis of life.

These simplest life processes are so marvelous and involve the action of such an intricate mass of machinery that we can no longer retain our earlier notion of protoplasm as the physical basis of life.