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one and all present us with nothing but a simple lump of an albuminous 

 combination of carbon, each individual particle of which their bodies are 

 composed has been proved, by refined chemical and optical tests, to be an 

 exact counterpart of every other particle composing it." To this class he 

 consigns the Foraminifera. Huxley places the "Monera" in his S.K. 

 "Protozoa," and Pascoe gives S.K. "Protozoa." Class 1.— "Monera," 

 without a shell. Class 2. — "Foraminifera," v^ith a shell, no ectosarc nor 

 endosarc, no mouth, no structural elements definable, no nucleus or in- 

 distinctly nucleated ! A bundle of negations. To this must be added the 

 statement, that they are without nerves or a nervous system, although 

 possessing an inherent self-acting power : an impossible condition, unless 

 Bowerbank's hypothesis is accepted, " that the whole mass is a diffused form 

 of nervous matter." Should the opinion of the specially gifted leader of 

 the German biologists and his followers be accepted, then the Foraminifera 

 must have arisen by spontaneous generation — or, as Dr. Dawson ironically 

 puts it, " The first molecules that took upon themselves the responsibility of 

 living;" that they are organisms without organs — undifi'erentiated and 

 homogeneous, without a nucleus, or indistinctly nucleated, and no contractile 

 vesicle or nervous system, and yet they perform the functions of life as if 

 possessing all these qualities, which the writers referred to deny them, and 

 not the least of the powers which they do possess is that of selection. 

 Immersed in sea water, they abstract from it the Lime and Silica required 

 for the construction of their tests, and redeposit these materials in a variety 

 of exquisite forms ; and the Arenaceous series exhibit an intelligent power 

 in the selection of the materials required for their tests, whether it is 

 sand, sponge spicules, or the smaller shells of their own species; adapting 

 the materials to the requirements, and putting them together with a 

 smoothness in some instances, and a beauty in all, that prevents the 

 acceptance of the definition that they are only a bundle of negations 

 with one positive quality, adherence. 



D'Orbigny considered the Amceba to represent the animal which in a 

 higher stage evolved into a Foraminifer, but Haeckel and his school place the 

 Foraminifera at a lower level than the Amoeba, because the Amoeba 

 possesses an ectosarc and endosarc, a nucleus and contractile vesicle, which 

 they assert are absent in the Foraminifera ; but Huxley, in describing his 

 class " Monera," in which he places Foraminifera, writes : " The entire body 

 consists of a particle of gelatinous protoplasm, in which no nucleus 

 contractile vesicle or other definite structure is visible, and which at the 

 most presents a separation into an outer, more clear and denser layer or 

 ectosarc, and an inner, more gi-anular endosarc^' — if not so well defined as 

 in Amceba. The explanation is, that inhabitants of shells do not require 

 an ectosarc so structurally perfect as the naked forms possess. The later 

 researches of Hertwig, Lesser, Schulze, Gruber, and Biitschli prove the 

 • presence of nuclei in several forms, and in reply to the dogmatic assertion 

 of the leader of the German school, respecting the homogeneity of the 

 animal substance of the Foraminifera, Allen Thomson, as early as 1871, 



