124 THE HISTORY OF CREATION. 
The former existence of this simplest animal form is, even at 
present, attested by the fact that the egg-cell of many 
animals loses its kernel directly after becoming fructified, - 
and thus relapses to the lower stage of development of a 
cytod without a kernel, like a Moneron. This remarkable 
occurrence I have interpreted, according to the law of latent 
inheritance (vol. i. p. 205), as a phylogenetic relapse of the 
cellular form into the original form of a cytod. The 
Monerula, as we may call this egg-cytod without a kernel, 
repeats then, according to the biogenetic principle (vol i. p. 
33), the most ancient of all animal forms, the common pri- 
mary form of the animal kingdom, namely, the Moneron. 
The second ontogenetic process consists in a new kernel 
being formed in the Monerula, or egg-cytod, which thus 
returns again to the value of a true egg-cell. According to 
this, we must look upon the simple animal cell, containing a 
kernel, or the single-celled primeval animal—which may 
still be seen in a living state in the Amebe of the present 
day—as the second step in the series of phylogenetic forms 
of the animal kingdom. Like the still living simple 
Amcebee, and like the naked ege-cells of many lower 
animals (for example, of Sponges and Medusze, ete.), which 
cannot be distinguished from them, the remote phyletic 
primary Amcebze also were perfectly simple naked-cells, 
which moved about in the Laurentian primeval ocean, 
creeping by means of the ever-changing processes of their 
body-substance, and nourishing and propagating themselves 
in the same way as the Amcebee of the present day. (Com- 
pare vol. i. p. 188, and vol. ii. p. 54.) The existence of this 
Ameceba-like, single-celled primary form of the whole animal 
kingdom is unmistakably indicated by the exceedingly im- 
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