CHAPTER VI. 

 THE EGG-CELL AND THE AMCEBA. 



The Egg of Man and of other Animals is a Simple Cell. — Import and 

 Essential Principles of the Cell Theory. — Protoplasm (Cell-substance), 

 and the Nucleus (Cell-kernel), as the Two Essential Constituent Parts 

 of every Genuine Cell. — The Undiiferentiated Egg-cell compared with a 

 highly Differentiated Mind-cell or Nerve-cell of the Bmin. — The Cell 9S 

 an Elementary Organism, or an Individual of the First Order. — The 

 Phenomena of its Life. — The Special Constitution of the Egg-cell. — 

 Yelk. — The Germ-vesicle. — The Germ-spot.— The Egg-membrane, or 

 Chorion. — Application of the Fundamental Principle of Biogeny to 

 the Egg. cell. — One-celled organisms. — The Amoebae. — Organization and 

 Vital Phenomena. — Their Movements. — Amoeboid Cells in Many-celled 

 Organisms. — Movements of such Cells, and Absorption of Solid Matter. — 

 Absorbent Blood Corpuscles. — Comparison of Amoeba with Egg-cell. — 

 Amoeboid Egg-cells of Sponges. — The Amoeba as the Common Ancestral 

 Form of Many-celled Organisms, 



"The ancestors of the higher animals must be regarded as one-celled 

 beings, similar to the Amoebae which at the present day occur in our rivers, 

 pools, and lakes. The incontrovertible fact that each human individual 

 develops from an eg^, which, in common with those of all animals, is a 

 simple cell, most clearly proves that the most remote ancestors of man 

 wore primordial animals of this sort, of a form equivalent to a simple cell. 

 When, thei'efore, the theory of the animal descent of man is condemned as 

 a 'horrible, shocking, and immoral' doctrine, the unalterable fact, which 

 can be proved at any moment under the microscope, that the huaian egg 



