210 THE DAWN OP LIFE. 



or knowledge of the apparatus employed. We might 

 so far as well be Amrebas. As we rise higher we 

 meet with more differences. Yet it is evident that our 

 gelatinous fellow-being can feel pain, dread danger, 

 desire possessions, enjoy pleasure, and in a simple un- 

 conscious way entertain many of the appetites and 

 passions that affect ourselves. The wonder is that 

 with so little of organization it can do so much. Yet, 

 perhaps, life can manifest itself in a broader and more 

 intense way where there is little organization ; and a 

 highly strung and complex organism is not so much a 

 necessary condition of a higher life as a mere means of 

 better adapting it to its present surroundings. Those 

 philosophies which identify the thinking mind with the 

 material organism, must seem outrageous blunders to 

 an Amoeba on the one hand, or to an angel on the 

 other, could either be enabled to understand them; 

 which, however, is not very probable, as they are too 

 intimately bound up with the mere prejudices incident 

 to the present condition of our humanity. In any case 

 the Protozoa teach us how much of animal function 

 may be fulfilled by a very simple organism, and warn 

 us against the fallacy that creatures of this simple 

 structure are necessarily nearer to inorganic matter, 

 and more easily developed from it than beings of more 

 complex mould. 



A similar lesson is taught by the complexity of their 

 skeletons. We speak in a crude unscientific way of 

 these animals accumulating calcareous matter, and 

 building up reefs of limestone. We must, however, 



