164 CELL INTELLIGENCE THE CAUSE OF EVOLUTION 



their social existence. The principle of individual sacri- 

 fice to common welfare has been accepted and agreed 

 upon as the right thing and as their common duty, im- 

 partially distributed among them, and they perform their 

 allotted work and duties regardless of their own individ- 

 ual comfort. I wish again to call your attention to the 

 various intelligent acts of the cell, living as a separate 

 individual before he has begun the social life. We find 

 him then in the same place as savage man, before man be- 

 gan his social and civilized life. We find the cell using 

 weapons like spears and bow and arrow with which to 

 fight his enemy and capture his prey. I quote from Mr. 

 Binet and others of the different actions of single cells 

 as follows : 



"With the cell the biologists can reconstruct the animal 

 and vegetable kingdom by studying the forms and be- 

 havior of single cells and one celled animals. One can 

 better understand the structure and physiology of the 

 highest and most specialized forms, even that of man 

 for as Geddes has remarked : "The functions of the body 

 are the result of the aggregate functions of its cell and 

 are explained by variations or phases of the activities of 

 them. Food is taken by the protozoa into the interior 

 of the body, the digestible portion assimilated and the 

 portion of no use to the organism afterwards rejected. 

 The character of the nourishment also varies. Some 

 forms live on vegetable productions alone, while others 

 absorb any organic body, animal or plant, often devouring 

 rotifers, worms or Crustacea far higher in the scale than 

 themselves. In the higher protozoa the food is either 

 brought to the part of the body set aside for the recep- 

 tion of food by currents of water, created by the rapid 

 moving cilia, while in others the animals which are eaten 

 are in some unexplained manner benumbed by the pro- 



