158 THE TRUE IDEA OF 



CHAPTER IX. 



THE SYMBOLICAL ANIMAL. THE PROTOZOA. 







You will recollect that in presenting to you the diagrams (pp. 

 122, 123) of the five types of animals, in which was represented 

 the progressive idea of the development of the nervous system, I 

 kept that idea in view as the prominent feature ; and this I did 

 because I had a particular aim, which was simply to show the 

 Animal Kingdom as a whole, as it were one animal, the typical 

 or symbolical animal, in its development from the lowest expression 

 of life to its highest manifestation. 



The older embryologists held it as a theory that the highest 

 animals actually do pass through all the phases of the lower 

 life, from the Monad, the jelly-like moving sphere, up through 

 the long scale of the intermediate grades, to the adult stage of 

 the animals in question. Thus, they said, a quadruped, e. g.< a 

 Rabbit, commences as an Infusorian, then it passes into a Polyp, 

 then into a Molluscan, then an Articulate, worm-like creature, 

 then a Fish, then a Reptile, then a Bird, and finally takes on its 

 own particular form. Now, what misled embryologists into this 

 error is this undeniable and well-established fact, namely, the 

 rabbit begins as a fish-like creature in structure, then in the 

 process of growth it assumes a reptile-like, and then a bird-like, 

 state of organization, and finally it becomes fully developed. All 

 this being so clear to their eyes, they were led to make certain 

 other deductions, and then to assume that it commences with 

 the lowest forms, such as I have just pointed out. 



No doubt in one sense there is truth in these latter assump- 

 tions, but in another sense they are untrue ; it is true in this 

 way, that as an animal, the rabbit goes through certain phases 

 which are common to all animals; for example, it begins as an 

 egg ; it has a right and a left, i. e., it is bilateral ; it has a nervous 



