VI 



ANIMALS AND PLANTS 183 



" cannot express " the excessive minuteness of the 

 granules in question, and they estimate their 

 diameter at less than ^WcTo -Q f an i ncn - Under 

 the highest powers of the microscope, at present 

 applicable, such specks are hardly discernible. 

 Nevertheless, particles of this size are massive 

 when compared to physical molecules ; whence 

 there is no reason to doubt that each, small as it 

 is, may have a molecular structure sufficiently 

 complex to give rise to the phenomena of life. 

 And, as a matter of fact, T?y patient watching of 

 the place at which these infinitesimal living 

 particles were discharged, our observers assured 

 themselves of their growth and development into 

 new monads. In about four hours from their 

 being set free, they had attained a sixth of the 

 length of the parent, with the characteristic cilia, 

 though at first they were quite motionless ; and, 

 in four hours more, they had attained the dimen- 

 sions and exhibited all the activity of the adult. 

 These inconceivably minute particles are therefore 

 the germs of the Heteromita; and from the 

 dimensions of these germs it is easily shown that 

 the body formed by conjugation may, at a low 

 estimate, have given exit to thirty thousand of 

 them ; a result of a matrimonial process whereby 

 the contracting, parties, without a metaphor, " be- 

 come one flesh," enough to make a Malthusian 

 despair of the future of the Universe. 



I am not aware that the investigators from 



