148 From Matter to Man. 



kingdoms, until it reaches an uncomfortable climax 

 in man himself, unconsciously imprisoning hundreds 

 of thousands of living animals (white corpuscles, 

 virtual amoebae) in his blood. Again it may be 

 asked, is man an individual or a colony ? 



{/) Twin Vegetal and Animal Life. — Perhaps the 

 most curious organisms in nature are the young gono- 

 phores of vilella. These animals contain plants, and, 

 strange to say, virtually live upon one another by 

 feeding each other with their waste products. Thus 

 the young gonophore, after budding from the parent, 

 starts existence with a life-long provision of algae ; 

 for the living vegetal is a veritable widow's cruse, 

 whose store of oil never runs dry, because it is ever 

 renewed from its comrade's waste. Both the animal 

 and the vegetal undoubtedly partially feed upon the 

 inorganic elements in the surrounding water, but each 

 also supplies the other with solid food. Thus the 

 animal cell furnishes the vegetal cell with abundance 

 of carbonic anhydride and nitrogenous waste (and is 

 sufficiently transparent to admit the necessary light), 

 while the vegetal, in return, yields oxygen and starch, 

 and is itself digestible should it unfortunately die 

 before its partner. No more ideal animal existence 

 could be conceived of, for it is a development of 

 organic conditions the most provident possible for 

 living beings under present conditions of supply and 

 demand ; but the system is a protophytic monopoly. 



As regards the nature of the dual existence common 

 to protophyta, a trifling circumstance seems to turn 



