CYTOLOGY. 149 



appear of this sort. The human body is re- 

 ported to be full of these micro-organisms, 

 which perform important vital functions; it 

 would appear that they still are engaged in 

 their original action of bridging over the In- 

 organic into the Organic for the higher or- 

 ganisms; they are the primordial means in 

 this our living body of transforming Unlife 

 into Life. 



The Bacterion is usually declared to be 

 vegetal in character, though not by all biolo- 

 gists; on the other hand the first animal is 

 affirmed to be the Amoeba. Both are unicellu- 

 lar, microscopic and are of many different 

 kinds or species. The two would seem to rep- 

 resent the first bifurcation of pre-cellular 

 Life into the two great lines of organic evo- 

 lution in plant and animal. 



The indifferentiated mass of pre-cellular 

 Life is transformed primarily into single 

 cells, which, as already recorded, have be- 

 come the special content of biological inves- 

 tigation. In the cell, accordingly, Life ap- 

 pears for the first time as individuated, as a 

 peripheral piece of matter, with its own inner 

 process continually going on. Here is what 

 we may call its primal divisive stage; there 

 is a separation, approximately infinite, of 

 the original unseparated material into vital 

 centers with their bodies, And having once 



