^52 RELICS OF PRIMEVAL LIFE 



presence of his God. In Eozoon we must discern 

 not only a mass of jelly, but a being endowed with 

 that higher vital force which surpasses vegetable life 

 and also physical and chemical forces ; and in this 

 animal energy we must see an emanation from a 

 Will higher than our own, ruling vitality itself; 

 and this not merely to the end of constructing the 

 skeleton of a Protozoon, but of elaborating all the 

 wonderful developments of life that were to follow 

 in succeeding ages, and with reference to which the 

 production and growth of this creature were initial 

 steps. It is this mystery of design which really 

 constitutes the " profound significance " of the fora- 

 miniferal skeleton. 



Another phenomenon of animality forced upon 

 our notice by the Protozoa is that of the conditions 

 of life in animals not individual, as we are, but 

 aggregative and accumulative in indefinite masses. 

 What, for instance, the relations to each other of 

 the Polyps, growing together in a coral mass, of 

 the separate parts of a Sponge, or the separate 

 cells of a Foraminifer, or of the sarcode mass of 

 an indefinitely spread out Cryptozoon. In the case 

 of the Polyps, we may believe that there is special 

 sensation in the tentacles and oral opening of each 



