240 Form and Color in Nature. 



in some cases we see that a certain result not only follows, 

 but is produced by, a certain cause. But why ? I defy 

 mankind to answer. Anything which happens, anything 

 which ever will happen or could happen, is as simple and 

 as easy as the action of the chemical laws and of the laws 

 of attraction in their most familiar operation. "When, 

 therefore, we take the step across the Eubicon which we 

 have reached, we certainly touch that which is remarkable, 

 but that which is no more remarkable than what we have 

 already known. "We are upon the very border-land of what 

 we consider the kingdom of life. "We consider it so simply 

 because here we begin to find traces of the operation of a 

 tendency which hitherto we have not observed. And in 

 what do we find it? In an albuminous substance which 

 appears in water or other liquid, which we can not recognize 

 as animal or vegetable, and which has no apparent organs 

 or distinction of parts. Huxley, indeed, says that there 

 appears to be no organic substance which we can examine 

 microscopically which does not seem at least to have some 

 distinction between the surface and the interior ; but this 

 is all. 



Haeckel assumes that the ordinary chemical and attract- 

 ive forces with whose operations we have in a certain sense 

 become familiar upon the other side of the line are all 

 sufficient to account for the origination of the organic 

 compound, and that simple pressure and condensation com- 

 plete the process of the formation of the earliest living indi- 

 viduals. It may be so. It is an interesting speculation, 

 but I do not see that it much matters. This could not 

 happen of itself without a tendency , whether through the 

 known laws or through the unknown law, any more than a 

 man can lift himself up by the straps of his boots. All 

 that we surely see is an order of development. 



The first individuals which we can examine are unicellu- 

 lar, are without distinction of parts so far as we can judge, 

 and are without distinction of function, excepting that the 

 surface incloses the interior. Being composed of the same 

 constituents as inorganic matter, they are subject to the 

 same or similar laws as to exhibition of color. 



These cells are driven hither and thither by currents 

 through the liquid in which they float, changing their shape 

 by protrusion of parts, absorbing nourishment and increas- 

 ing in size, and multiplying in numbers simply by division. 

 Sometimes, however, although divisions are formed, the cells 



