80 MORPHOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT. 



vidualities are indefinite, the formation of major individu 

 alities out of them, naturally leaves less conspicuous traces. 



Be this as it may, however, in such types of Protozoa as 

 the Thalassicollce, we find that though there is reason to re 

 gard the aggregate as an aggregate of the second order, yet 

 its divisibility into minor individualities like those just do- 

 scribed, is by no means manifest. Fig. 140, representing 



Splicerozoum punctntum, one of this group, illustrates the diffi 

 culty. Only by some license of interpretation, can we regard 

 the &quot; cellocform bodies &quot; contained in it, as the morphological 

 units of the animal. The jelly-like mass in which they are 

 imbedded, shows no signs of being divisible into portions 

 having each a cell or nucleus for its centre.* Comparison of 

 the various forms assumed by creatures of this type, suggests, 

 contrariwise, that the homogeneous sarcode is primary, and 

 its included structures secondary. Among the 



Furtwninifera, we find evidence of the coalescence of aggre 

 gates of the first order, into aggregates of the second order. 

 There are solitary Foraminifers, allied to the creature repre 

 sented in Fig. 134. Certain ideal types of combination 



* This statement seems at variance with the figure ; but the figure is very in 

 accurate. Its inaccuracy curiously illustrates the vitiation of evidence. When I 

 saw the drawing on the block, I pointed out to the draughtsman, that he had 

 made the surrounding curves much more obviously related to the contained bodies, 

 than they were in the original (in Dr Carpenter s Foraminifera) ; and having 

 looked on while he in great measure remedied this defect, thought no further care 

 was needed. Now, however, on seeing the figure in the printer s proof, I find 

 tli at the engraver, swayed by the same supposition as the draughtsman that such 

 a relation was meant to be shown, has made his lines represent it still more de 

 cidedly than those of the draughtsman before they were corrected. Thus, vague 

 linear representations, like vague verbal ones, are apt to grow more definite 

 when repeated. Hypothesis warps perceptions as it warps thoughts. 



