302 - The Microscope. 



paleontological evidence. The past must be judged by the present. 

 To preserve respect for the scientific method and the conclusions 

 derived therefrom, unnecessary speculation should be avoided. For 

 one, I prefer to hold, for the present, at least, the belief that in the 

 beginning living organisms were created in their simplest forms; 

 from these succeeding floras and faunas have been evolved. 



We do not begin to know the nature of force, of matter, or the 

 origin of motion, yet we study and investigate their laws and natural 

 relations, and are satisfied. We rest our inquiries as to whence and 

 what, and partly admit that these are questions past finding out by 

 one philosophy. So, too, we may logically examine the phenomena 

 of life, past and present, without being able or assuming to explain, 

 on scientific grounds, its essence or origin. I am willing to admit 

 the creation of protoplasm, and chlorophyl, too, if necessary, by a 

 power that is beyond nature as we understand the term. 



Still, I admit that the question of archebiosis is not necessarily 

 and forever settled; it may yet be attacked and proved experiment- 

 ally by some one endowed by a peculiar genius for experimentation, 

 one who shall be able both to see and to artificially reproduce those 

 conditions and combinations of matter and forces, chemical and 

 physical, which existed during the ages preceding the formation of 

 the oldest fossil bearing rocks. 



Until such genius arises, or light breaks in from some other 

 source, I say again, I think it quite as logical and as satisfactory to 

 keep to the old lines, at least so far as to believe that, up to a cer- 

 tain stage in the progress of the material world, there were no living 

 beings, then they were created by an Almighty Power, not expressed 

 by conditions and chemistry. I hold this simply as a naturalist, for 

 consistency's sake, and in order to go no farther than the evidence 

 warrants, so T am free to follow the lead of truth, no matter whither 

 it may direct. 



The variety of types of the protozoa is very great. This can 

 scarcely be appreciated except by long and intimate study. There 

 is neither time or reason for an enumeration of these characters and 

 peculiarities, although it would be interesting to trace the advance 

 in characters. As we proceeded, from the highest to the lowest of the 

 groups, we should find each type more or less intimately connected 

 with those both above and below; that is, the line of phylogenetic 

 descent is as clearly traceable in the protozoic as in the metazoic 

 branches of the animal kingdom; but this is not all, for we find cer- 

 tain infusoria, for example, which are evidently the types connecting 



