76 THE HISTORY OF CREATION. 
the vegetable kingdom, and a second for the animal king- 
dom, we may set up a number of independent stems of 
Protista, each of which has developed, quite independently 
of other stems and trunks, from a special archigonic form of 
Monera. In order to make this relation more clear, we may 
imagine the whole world of organisms as an immense 
meadow which is partially withered, and upon which two 
many-branched and mighty trees are standing, likewise 
partially withered. The two great trees represent the 
animal and vegetable kingdoms, their fresh and still green 
branches the living animals and plants; the dead branches 
with withered leaves represent the extinct groups. The 
withered grass of the meadow corresponds to the numerous 
extinct tribes, and the few stalks, still green, to the still 
living phyla of the kingdom Protista. But the common 
soil of the meadow, from which all have sprung up, is 
primeval by protoplasm, 
