I 2 6 THE BEGINNINGS OF LIFE. 



primitrva of Prof. Haeckel. These have presented them- 

 selves in the form of minute irregularly-shaped, almost 

 transparent specks of homogeneous jelly, about y^nW 

 in diameter. They seldom showed even a vacuole in 

 their interior. They underwent slow, though obvious 

 changes in form; and they exhibited slight to-and-fro, 

 or somewhat jerkingly-progressive movements. Essen- 

 tially similar organisms will, in all probability, here- 

 after be found to be most widely distributed. They 

 are, in almost every respect, similar to the minute jelly- 

 specks, which we shall afterwards find making their ap- 

 pearance in previously homogeneous organic solutions ; 

 and they are, we believe, thoroughly primordial organ- 

 isms, capable of originating de novo in organic solutions. 

 Concerning this part of our subject, however, we shall 

 have more to say hereafter. 



This then is the material which was spoken of by 

 Professor Huxley l as c The Physical Basis of Life;' and 

 the upholders of the Protoplasm or Sarcode theory main- 

 tain that this substance has an essential unity of nature. 

 So that, in spite of minute specific and isomeric dif- 

 ferences, we have in reality to do with one and the same 

 generic substance, whether existing as the ' contents'* of 

 animal and vegetable cells, or as naked masses of proto- 

 plasm whether as parts of higher organisms, or as single 

 independent beings such as we have just been de- 

 scribing. The belief that all these various forms are but 



1 Fortnightly Review,' 1869. 



