The Message of Science. 27 



life ; a germ life as far below the tissue cell life in size 

 and bulk as the cell is smaller than the whole animal 

 organism. The cell would thus appear to extrude a 

 species of minute offspring which are assembled, as a 

 colony, in the ovum. 



Animals are grand communities of cells and something 

 more, the result of long organization and new methods of 

 cell life. But this distinction does not essentially detract 

 from the importance which attaches to the phenomenon 

 disclosed to us when two cells combine to live one life. I 

 have termed this a new departure, yet must not be under- 

 stood to assert that it took place suddenly, as being the 

 beginning or end of an epoch, or as indicating a "creative 

 act," that mental lapse to which certain venerable savants 

 are so prone. 



Here, too, it will be well to enlarge the common con- 

 ception of a " cell." We are apt to think of unicellular 

 life as being very low and simple, far down toward the 

 primary molecules and " atoms " of matter. Whereas the 

 truth appears to be that the " cell " is a relatively huge 

 and vastly complex organism; and that the unicellular 

 life of the globe is an evolution of a most hoary antiquity ; 

 herewith also this other fact should be associated and 

 kept in mind, namely, that in the bodies of metazoons, 

 in plants and trees, the unicellular type of life, this 

 ancient life of the Silurian ages, still persists. In fact, it 

 will hardly be too much to say that the unicellular is the 



