386 THE SOCIAL OEGAKISM. 



let us look at them in detail. We shall find that the 

 parallelism becomes the more marked the more closely 

 it IS traced. 



The lowest animal and vegetal forms — Protozoa and 

 Protophyta — are chiefly inhabitants of the water. They 

 are minute bodies, most of which are made individually 

 visible only by the microscope. All of them are extremely 

 simple in structure ; and some of them, as the Phhopoch^ 

 almost structureless. Multiplying, as they ordinarily do, 

 by the spontaneous division of their bodies, they produce 

 halves, which may either become quite separate and move 

 away in different directions, or may continue attached. 

 By the repetition of this process of fission, aggregations of 

 various sizes and kinds are formed. Among the Proto- 

 phyta we have some classes, as the PiatoniacecB and the 

 Yeast-plant, in which the individuals may be either sepa- 

 rate, or attached in groups of two, three, four, or more ; 

 other classes in which a considerable number of individual 

 cells are united into a thread {Conferva, Jfonilia) ; others 

 in which they form a net work {Hydrodictyon) ; others in 

 which they form plates ( Ulvd) ; and others in which they 

 form masses {Laminaria^ Agaricus) : all which vegetal 

 forms, having no distinction of root, stem, or leaf, are called 

 Thallogens. Among the Protozoa we find parallel facts. 

 Immense numbers of Amceba-like creatures, massed togeth- 

 er in a framework of horny fibres, constitute SjDonge. In 

 the Porarninifera, we see smaller groups of such creatures 

 arranged into more definite shapes. ISTot only do these 

 almost structureless Protozoa unite into regular or irregu- 

 lar aggregations of various sizes ; but among some of the 

 more organized ones, as the Vorticellce^ there are also pro- 

 duced clusters of individuals, proceeding from a common 

 stock. But these little societies of monads, or cells, or 

 whatever else we may call them, are societies only in the 



