1896.J MICROSCOPICAL JOURNAL. 371 



what they actually witness." That is to say we see a 

 thing, therefore, it is, witliout reasoning at all about it. 

 This is a common mode of stating a thing, but when we 

 Tegison we know and what we know we state, with a 

 query. 



Rhizopods are minute specks of protoplasm, rarely 

 just visible to the eye, though some are invisible and it 

 requires the highest power and the nicest manipulation 

 to even see them at all. They are seen everywhere and 

 at every season and in all the rocks. For they are and 

 were the"physical basis of life" as Huxley tersely put it. 



I shall use for my text Dr. Joseph Leidy's Fresh- 

 water Rhizopods of North America, as that gives graphic 

 and late researches on the minute and beautiful organ- 

 isms which I am about to describe. Dr. Leidy quotes 

 Dr. Carpenter's remarks which I have given above. But 

 as I have said this quality is common to every one. We 

 think we see and therefore do not trouble ourselves to 

 reason about things that are going on around us. We 

 are selfish. It is much easier to say what we think we 

 see than what we do see. It is easy to repeat what is 

 told us without taking the trouble to find things out for 

 ourselves. From the first comes the general run of men. 

 From the second comes the doubter and the agnostic, the 

 enquirer. By far the minority. But as in all things, the 

 minority rules and time shows what is the true way of 

 viewing things. The simplest kinds of Rhizopods are 

 unprovided with a protection to their soft part. They 

 are in fact formless masses of Protoplasm. And this 

 protoplasm is exactly the same in plants, protista, and 

 animals. The motile jelly of the Rhizopod is thought to 

 be of the nature of the elementary basis of organic bodies 

 in general. It is known as protoplasm, from the Greek 

 signifying first and I mould: That is to say the primitive 

 material from which organic bodies are moulded. Its 

 resemblance in motile power to muscular tissue, or the 



