COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



mon, and the lowly organized duck-bill, as being 

 a mammal, would be placed above the parrot and 

 the falcon. Or if we attempted to escape these 

 difficulties by ranking our animals in a series 

 according to their general complexity of organi- 

 zation, neglecting their typical differences of 

 structure, our whole classification would be 

 thrown into senseless confusion. Parrots and 

 honey-bees would be thrust in among mammals, 

 and not only classes, but even orders, and per- 

 haps families, of annulosa would have to be di- 

 vided, to make room for intrusive echinoderms 

 and mollusks. 



In view of these difficulties, as Professor 

 Huxley and Professor Haeckel have shown, the 

 only feasible manner of arranging the animal 

 kingdom is in a number of diverging or branch- 

 ing lines, like the boughs and twigs of a tree. 

 Starting from the amoeba and its kindred, 

 which are neither animal nor vegetal in charac- 

 ter, we encounter two diverging lines of devel- 

 opment represented respectively — according 

 to Haeckel's surmise — by those protists with 

 harder envelopes which are the predecessors of 

 the vegetable kingdom, and those protists with 

 softer envelopes which are the forerunners of 

 the more mobile animal type of organization. 1 



i Though I leave this sentence as it was written three years 

 ago, it must not be understood as an unqualified endorsement 

 of Professor Haeckel's attempt to erect a third kingdom — of 

 388 



