THE SIMPLEST FORMS OF LIFE 35 



lowly organism, instead of dallying with amoebae. Magnify 

 the speck of gray or greenish matter a hundred times, and 

 it breaks up into tiny dots or granules, possibly lying in a 

 common slimy bed. Take one of them, magnify it a 

 thousand times, and its simple frame stands out clearly 

 enough. No nucleus is to be seen. In scores of species 

 the most eager investigators, with the most powerful micro- 

 scopes, have discovered no differentiation into germ-matter 

 and body-matter, though many claim they have found the 

 beginnings of one. The only definite details you see in the 

 tiny transparent globule are the specks or grains of its 

 plasm, or its food forming into plasm. It has no organs 

 whatever. It is a minute particle of the thick, viscous 

 matter known as plasm or protoplasm. Take a drop of the 

 white of an egg, and divide it if you can into a thousand 

 parts, and you will have some notion of this little creature's 

 structure, or lack of one. 



Its "life," or "vitality," is proportionately simple. From 

 the surrounding water it absorbs particles of matter, organic 

 or inorganic, assimilable or inassimilable. Put finely ground 

 paint into the water, and it will absorb granules of it. They 

 pass laboriously in and out of the viscid little mass. There 

 is no pursuit of food, no choice of useful and declining of 

 useless matter. It is absurd to seek any mystic entity here. 

 We cannot explain the whole metabolism as the intake 

 and output of matter is called because the structure of the 

 plasm is not yet understood. But we do know that the 

 molecular structure is enormously complex, and we shall 

 expect a correspondingly complex play of energy. We find 



