30 COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY. 
animals move, feel, and grow. But some of the lowest 
forms are without the slightest trace of organs; they seem 
to be as perfectly homogeneous and structureless as a drop 
of jelly. They could not be more simple. They are de- 
void of muscles, nerves, and stomach; yet they have all 
the fundamental attributes of life—moving, feeling, and 
eating. It has been supposed that the muscular and nerv- 
ous matter is diffused in a molecular form; but all we can 
say is, that the highest power of the microscope reveals no 
organized structure whatever, 2.¢., there are no parts set 
apart for a particular purpose; but a fragment is as good 
as the whole to perform all the functions of life. The 
animal series, therefore, begins with forms that feel with- 
out nerves, move without muscles, and digest without a 
stomach: in other words, life is the cause of organiza- 
tion, not the result of it. Animals do not live because 
they are organized, but are organized because they are 
alive. 
CHAPTER V. 
ORGANIZATION. 
We have seen that the simplest life is a formless speck 
of protoplasm, without distinctions of structure, and there- 
fore without distinctions of function, all parts serving all 
purposes— mouth, stomach, limb, and lung — indiscrimi- 
nately. There is no separate digestive cavity, no separate 
respiratory, muscular, or nervous systems. Every part 
will successively feed, feel, move, and breathe. Just as 
in the earliest state of society, all do every thing, each does 
all. Every man is his own tailor, architect, and lawyer. 
3ut in the progress of social development the principle of 
the division of labor emerges. Tirst comes a distinction 
