THE DAWN-ANIMAL AS A TEACHER IN SCIENCE. 211 



bear in mind that they are as dependent on their food 

 for the materials of their skeletons as we are, and that 

 their crusts grow in the interior of the sarcode just as 

 our bones do within our bodies. The provision even 

 for nourishing the interior of the skeleton by tubuli 

 and canals is in principle similar to that involved in 

 the Haversian canals, cells, and canalicules of bone. 

 The Amoeba of course knows neither more nor less of 

 this than the average Englishman. It is altogether a 

 matter of unconscious growth. The process in the 

 Protozoa strikes some minds, however, as the more 

 wonderful of the two. It is, says an eminent 

 modern physiologist, a matter of "profound signifi- 

 cance " that this "particle of jelly [the sarcode of a 

 Foraminifer] is capable of guiding physical forces in 

 such a manner as to give rise to these exquisite and 

 almost mathematically arranged structures/' Respect- 

 ing the structures themselves there is no exaggeration 

 in this. No arch or dome framed by human skill is 

 more perfect in beauty or in the realization of mechan- 

 ical ideas than the tests of some Foraminifera, and 

 none is so complete and wonderful in its internal 

 structure. The particle of jelly, however, is a figure of 

 speech. The body of the humblest Foraminifer is 

 much more than this. It is an organism with divers 

 parts, as we have already seen in a previous chapter, 

 and it is endowed with the mysterious forces of life 

 which in it guide the physical forces, just as they do in 

 building up phosphate of lime in our bones, or indeed 

 just as the will of the architect does in building a 



