67 
this Journal, 1869) to be called Protomonas Hucxleyi, and 
some new Protameebe, all of which are figured. 
A telling chapter is headed the Plastid theory and the 
Carbon theory ; it contains views which have been already 
put forward by the author in his general ‘ Morphology,’ and 
which have been before this expounded to the people of 
England. Either, says Haeckel, there is one nature manifest 
in the laws which rule supremely and on every side, or there 
are two natures—an organic nature, in which necessarily 
working causes (cause efficientes) are active, and an organic 
nature in which specially contrived causes (cause finales) are 
at work. The adherents of evolution accept the first, its 
opponents the latter view. The former hold to a monistic 
and mechanical view of nature, the latter toa teleological and 
dualistic one. The plastid and the carbon theory—that is, 
the conception of life as the property of the simplest bits of 
jelly—of protoplasm as its ‘‘materielle Grundlage ”—this 
protoplasm or urschleim being nothing more than a carbon- 
compound, owing all its wonderful properties to the unique 
power of complex chemical binding possessed by carbon, 
enables us to dispense with the second nature. By it and 
Darwin’s law of survival of the fittest, we can hope to account 
to ourselves for all phenomena by one universal code of laws, 
and establish the philosophy of Monism. 
It is Professor Haeckel’s great merit to have discovered 
life without structure, which was first clearly made known 
by his ‘ Researches on Monera.’ He claims to have advanced 
a step towards the goal of biological science, pointed out by Carl 
Ernst Baer in his classical ‘ History of Animal Development,’ 
* That fortunate one will win the palm for whom it is re- 
served to trace back the constructive forces of the animal 
body to the universal forces or laws of being of the entire 
world.” 
Professor Haeckel’s remarks on the spontaneous generation 
question are especially interesting at this time. Approached in 
the light of his researches and the evolution theory, we must 
recognise, he says, that the oft-repeated, much be-wondered 
experiments which are made to prove or to disprove sponta- 
neous generation, are useless. We must go another way to 
work. We could never hope to see the development of life 
from inorganic matter as long as cellular organisms were the 
simplest known to us, nor can we attach value to experiments 
professing to show this ; our chance is, however, bettered by 
the discovery of the Monera. These we may possibly see 
developing from matter devoid of life. Of these Bathybius 
is the most likely to present such a phenomenon. If Monera 
