PLANT-LIFE GENERATION. 243 



as well as the origin of the primal differenti- 

 ation into Plant and Animal, which seems to 

 occur with the transition from pre-cellular 

 Life into cellular. This stage is still theoreti- 

 cal, the coercive demand of thought; yet in 

 the earliest organisms it becomes almost vis- 

 ible. For instance, the slime-mold known in 

 science as Myxornycetes, sometimes classed as 

 an animal and sometimes as a plant, and 

 sometimes as neither, appears to be one of 

 the living things nearest the point of bifur- 

 cation into the two kingdoms. It is primi- 

 tively cellular or seems to be becoming so; 

 its very diversity would indicate a lack of in- 

 dividuation in such semi-organic material, 

 there being at least 300 species according to 

 De Bary. Such is the next neighbor to the 

 original life-slime on its way from Unlife to 

 Life a kind of neutral or double plant-ani- 

 mal (Phytozoon) which we may take as the 

 best instance of this transitional stage. For- 

 mation, Assimilation and Generation, which 

 become so distinctive as the bifurcating lines 

 of Plant and Animal evolve, quite blend to- 

 gether in these early protoplasmic shapes just 

 getting individuated. 



The present field has long attracted the 

 attention of biologists who have given to it 

 various names. The best known designation 

 is probably that of Haeckel who calls the'se 



