50 THE HISTORY OF CREATION. 
another, or with the lowest animals on the one hand, and 
with the lowest plants on the other hand. It is not improb- 
able that the classes specified, and many other unknown 
classes of Protista, represent quite independent organic 
tribes, or phyla, each of which has independently developed 
from one, perhaps from various, Monera which have arisen by 
spontaneous generation. If we do not agree to this poly- 
phyletic hypothesis of descent, and prefer the monophyletic 
hypothesis of the blood relationship of all organisms, we 
shall have to look upon the different classes of Protista as 
the lower small offshoots of the root, springing from the same 
simple Monera root, out of which arose the two mighty and 
many-branched pedigrees of the animal kingdom on the one 
hand, and of the vegetable kingdom on the other. (Com- 
pare pp. 74, 75.) Before I enter into this difficult question 
more accurately, it will be appropriate to premise something 
further as to the contents of the classes of Protista given on 
the next page, and their general natural history. 
It will perhaps seem strange that I should here again 
begin with the remarkable Monera as the first class of 
the Protista kingdom, as I of course look upon them as 
the most ancient primary forms of all organisms without 
exception. Still, what are we otherwise to do with the stil 
living Monera ? We know nothing of their palzontological 
origin, we know nothing of any of their relations to lower 
animals or plants, and we know nothing of their possible 
capability of developing into higher organisms. The simple 
and homogeneous little lump of slime or mucus which consti- 
tutes their entire body (Fig. 8) is the most ancient and 
original form of animal as well as of vegetable plastids. 
Hence it would evidently be just as arbitrary and unreason- 
