290 The Unity of the Organism 



"The body of a protozoan is not the homologuc of a single 

 cell in the body of a metazoan, and hence the succession of 

 individuals formed from one conjugation to the next, is 

 not comparable with a metazoan body any more than a 

 swarm of bees is comparable with an elephant." ^-'^ 



Tlic reformation proposed is to cease calling the protista 

 unicellular and to recognize that they are non-cellular. 

 "The essential difference between the structure of protista 

 and that of other organisms is properly and objectively ex- 

 pressed when we describe these as cellular, those as non- 

 cellular. The concept 'cell,' derived from a study of cellu- 

 lar organisms, is a fairly simple one. It is quite clear that 

 the correct antithesis in the present case is between cells 

 and not-cells, and not between many cells and one cell — as 

 has hitherto been universally assumed." ^^ 



The cell concept which Dobell believes to be "fairly sim- 

 ple" is presented thus : "The ini^estigation of an immense 

 number of organisms has brought to light a most important 

 fact, namely, that the protoplasm of a living organism al- 

 ways consists of two elements, a nucleus (or nuclei) and 

 cytoplasm. 



"Now in a very large number of multinucleate organisms 

 the cytoplasm is subdivided into a number of definite com- 

 partments, each of which encloses a nucleus. These cyto- 

 plasmic subdivisions with their enclosed nuclei we may call — 

 following the ordinary usage — cells." ^^ The denial of cellu- 

 larity to the Protista, Dobell bases on the fact that the 

 individual organisms are not divided up into nucleate masses 

 of protoplasm. 



Other and quite distinct aspects of Dobell's standpoint 

 are his contention that the terms "higher" and "lower" ■ 

 have no valid applicability to organisms, and that the pro- 

 tista are not "primitive" and "ancestral" relative to man 

 and other large animals and plants, in an evolutional sense. 

 "There is no more reason," he says, "to suppose that these 



