EIGHTEENTH CENTURY EVOLUTIONISTS 183 



air, and earth were joined. The Ur-Schleim as- 

 sumed the form of microscopically minute blad- 

 ders, and Nature has for its unit an infinity of 

 these. Each of these bladders has an outer dense 

 envelope and a fluid internal content. This 'in- 

 fusorium,' as he calls it, has the form of a sphere, 

 and is developed in the following manner: it is 

 first an aggregate of an almost infinite number 

 of organic points ; as the result of the oxydizing 

 process, the original fluid form is replaced by a 

 vesicle with a flowing interior and firm periph- 

 ery; in this are united the three life processes of 

 feeding, digestion, and respiration. The whole 

 organic world consists of infusoria, and both 

 plants and animals are simply its modifications. 

 Generation by heredity, according to Oken, is 

 the synthesis or bringing together of organic 

 spheres; as with Robinet, it is the sjTithesis of 

 germs, and with de Maupertuis and Diderot, the 

 synthesis of particles. As to the origin of life, 

 like the Greeks Oken imagined that the combina- 

 tion of these infinitely numerous mucous points 

 or infusoria, composed of carbon mixed in equal 

 quantities with water and air, found its most fa- 

 vorable conditions at the junction of sea and 

 land. "All hfe," he says, "is from the sea; the 

 whole sea is alive. Love arose out of sea-foam." 

 In one passage he says: "If new individuals orig- 

 inate, they could not originate directly from oth- 



