24 THE UNITY OF NATURE. 



The Euglenids©, a single cell with a little wiggling t-ail, proclaims 

 an animal. The monad, some of which are animal, others vege- 

 table, as the books say, and you see the line of demarcation is very 

 fine. 



Take the diatoms for instance. They are exceedingly small, 

 many of them invisible to the naked eye. yet beautifully carved. 

 They act like an animal and propagate like a jjlant. That is, they 

 have motion and seemingly volition, so much that under the 

 microscope I have often WHt<5hed the Navicula viridis. and its 

 motion is as steadj'- and stately as a man-of-war with twin-screw 

 propellers. I have seen it sailing along and strike a piece of 

 algaB, when it would reverse its motion and .steer a little to one 

 side and try again, strike again, back off, steer to the other side, 

 try again, strike again, then give it up, turn at a right angle or 

 right about, and sail off into the open sea ; and yet these propa- 

 gate by spores like our ferns somewhat. Is it an animal or vege- 

 table? No one knows, but it is generally allowed to be a vege- 

 table. But how- does it get its motion, and even its apparent 

 reasoning power? No one knows. 



However, for the present, it seems to obliterate the line of de- 

 marcation between the Animal and Vegetable Kingdoms . 



Then take the Vegetable Kingdom itself, from the gigantic 

 (^uercus Robur down to the micrococcus tetragenous. What is 

 the principle that leads them to choose their proper nourishment 

 from the soil, to pump it up to the loftiest leaf and to distribute 

 it ; to draw in its carbon dioxide and to expel its oxygen ; to select 

 and place its silica, and to manufacture its chlorophyl? 



Some say it is life. But what is life, and how does it act? Is it 

 conscious life, and so acts intelligently? Or is it a species of 

 vegetable or even animal magnetism, as some say (for not only 

 vegetables but animals also are built up by this cell formation) 

 w'hich attracts like particles to itself and so is a species of animal 

 or vegetable — crystallization, as it were, that builds up the cell 

 and its contents? 



This is a process called the "Solway Process,'' after the name of 

 its author, that tries to explain life by a, chemical process in the 

 cells of the animal body, for he says : 



"The animal cell which is called alive is simply a living chemi 

 cal reaction — or more exactly a living oxidation of carbon which 



