Attempt to Subordinate Protista to Cell-Theory 289 



Many other expressions of dissatisfaction with prevalent 

 notions about the simpHcity of the protozoa could be cited 

 from the very latest writings touching the subject from quite 

 other directions tlian those of morphology and development. 

 Thus Jennings says concerning the activities of the proto- 

 zoan, "The writer is thoroughly convinced, after long study 

 of the behavior of this organism, that if Amoeba were a 

 large animal, so as to come within the every-day experience 

 of human beings, its behavior would at once call forth the 

 attribution to it of states of pleasure and pain, of hunger, 

 desire, and the like, on precisely the same basis as we attri- 

 bute these things to the dog." ^^ 



And M. M. Metcalf in a recent address reviewing the 

 nuclear phenomena lately discovered in various species of 

 Amoeba, said : "With such phenomena as these demonstrated 

 in an amoeba, no zoologist can dare again to apply to any 

 organism the adjective simple. In the behavior of its nuclear 

 elements Amoeba is as complex as is man himself." 



But the most radical and ^aolent pronouncement against 

 the cellular conception of the protista that has ever been 

 made, comes from one of the ablest and most active students 

 of these organisms, C. Clifford Dobell, whose writings have 

 already been incidentally cited. A closer acquaintance with 

 his view will appropriately terminate the historical part of 

 our discussion. 



Dobell's notable essay leaves no reader in doubt about the 

 nature of this author's disaffection, or as to the doctrinal 

 reforaiations he holds to be necessary. The application of 

 the cell-theory to the Protista is wholly unjustifiable and has 

 been and is now more than ever before a serious hindrance 

 to the advancement of positive knowledge and sound inter- 

 pretation of this great subdivision of the organic world. 

 Coming to closer quarters, his contention is that the protist 

 body does not correspond to a minute fragment of the meta- 

 zoan body, one of its myriads of cells, but to the whole body. 



