THE DAWN-ANIMAL AS A TEACHER IN SCIENCE. 209 



credit to tlie artist in making a simple organism with 

 varied powers^ as a more complex frame for doing nicer 

 work. It is a weakness of humanity to plume itself 

 on advantages not of its own making, and to treat its 

 superior gifts as if they were the result of its own 

 endeavours. The truculent traveller who illustrated 

 his boast of superiority over the Indian by compar- 

 ing his rifle with the bow and arrows of the savage, 

 was well answered by the question, " Can you make a 

 rifle ? '^ and when he had to answer, " No,'^ by the 

 rejoinder, " Then I am at least better than you, for I 

 can make my bow and arrows.^^ The Amoeba or the 

 Eozoon is probably no more than we its own creator ; 

 but if it could produce itself out of vegetable matter 

 or out of inorganic substances, it might claim in so far 

 a higher place in the scale of being than we ; and as 

 it is, it can assert equal powers of digestion, assimila- 

 tion, and motion, with much less of bodily mechanism. 

 In order that we may feel, a complicated apparatus 

 of nerves and brain-cells has to be constructed and set 

 to work ; but the Protozoon, without any distinct brain, 

 is all brain, and its sensation is simply direct. Thus 

 vision in these creatures is probably performed in a 

 TOugh way by any part of their transparent bodies, 

 and taste and smell are no doubt in the same case. 

 Whether they have any perception of sound as distinct 

 from the mer« vibrations ascertained by touch, we do 

 not know. Here also we are not far removed above the 

 Protozoa, especially those of us to whom touch, see- 

 ing, and hearing are mere feelings, without thought 



