SP ONTANEO US GENERA TION. 



89 



organisms are, in many respects, of the highest interest. For the 

 albumen-like, organic matter meets us here as the material substratum 

 of all life-phenomena, apparently not only under the simplest form as 

 yet actually observed, but also under the simplest form which can 

 well be imagined. Simpler and more incomplete organisms than the 

 monera cannot be conceived. . . . Indeed, the whole body of the 

 monera, however strange this may sound, represents nothing more 

 than a single, thoroughly homogeneous particle of albumen, in a firmly 

 adhesive condition. The external form is quite irregular, continually 

 changing, globularly contracted when at rest. Our sharpest discrimina- 

 tion can detect no trace of an internal structure, or of a formation from 

 dissimilar parts. As the homogeneous, albuminous mass of the body 

 of the moner does not even exhibit a differentiation into an inner 

 nucleus and an outer plasma, and as, moreover, the whole body con- 

 sists of a homogeneous plasma or protoplasma, the organic matter here 

 does not even reach the importance of the simplest cell. It remains in 

 the lowest imaginable grade of organic individuality." Prof. Haeckel 

 afterward says : " The monera are indeed protista. They are neither 

 animals nor plants. They are organisms of the most primitive kind ; 

 among which the distinction between animals and plants does not 

 exist." 



Fig. 3. 

 S e 



Transformations of Chlorophyll Corpuscles, (x 600.) 



a, Pale, unaltered Chlorophyll Corpuscles of Nitella ; 6, Others lying side by side with former, but larger, 

 of a darker green, and slightly granular; c, Decolorization advancing a few granules still green; 

 d, Similar corpuscles after the protrusion of motionless rays, and formation of a vacuole ; e. Similar 

 corpuscles completely decolorized and converted into sluggish specimens of Actinophrys ; /, First stage 

 in transformation of Actinophrys. some of which are converted into Amoebae (g), and others into Monads 

 (Ji) with two flagella ; j, Enchelys-like organisms, probably derived from further development of some 

 Monads and Amuebae. 



The common amoeba is described as a microscopic animal at the 

 very bottom of the scale of living things. It is a minute, shapeless, 

 structureless mass of semi-fluid jelly or protoplasm, without organs of 

 any kind, but it has the marvellous power of extemporizing organs as 

 it requires them. Thus, if it wishes to move, it shoots out a part of 

 its body as a temporary foot, and retracts it when no longer wanted. 



