of the Cilio-fiagellate Infusoria. 271 



of the older microscopists, hoping therein to find an abundance 

 of argument by which they may prove that rock and flesh do not 

 incompatibly jostle each other whenever they come in contact. 



Claiming, and justly too, that these extremes of the inorganic 

 and organic bodies are naturally and incontestably related to 

 each other through their common basis the simple elements of 

 the chemist, it does not seem possible to the materialist that 

 their relations should be changed or dissevered by the introduc- 

 tion of any modes of existence, however varied or elevated. The 

 carbon, the hydrogen, the nitrogen, and the oxygen once being 

 established as definite existences, they always remain C, H, N, 

 and 0, no matter under what forms or relations they may be 

 disguised, the various modes of being not in the least changing 

 the fact of their existence. For instance, they say, the transi- 

 tion from one kind of animate being to another kind is only a 

 graduated change in the mode of existence, or of the manner of 

 an outward expression of the relations of the component elements 

 of the organism ; certainly not an actual metamorphosis of the 

 nature of these elements. To this assertion there may not pos- 

 sibly be any objection ; but if the same explanation were urged 

 for the transition to the Monad from the infinitesimally small, 

 vibrating, inorganic corpuscle of the "Brownian motion," we 

 have not come to that state of knowledge of the forces of nature 

 to accept it so readily as in the former case. Still the growing 

 tendency, among the philosophical chemists, to merge the vital 

 and the inorganic forces into one would seem to be inevitably 

 preparing us to regard such a transition as identical in kind 

 with that which obtains among the undoubtedly organized bo- 

 dies, whether animals or plants. 



In this state of hesitancy to step across the vanishing line of 

 demarcation between the animate and the inanimate, we can at 

 least safely venture to give, in general terms, an expression of 

 the relations of the three forms of existence. We may say that 

 it is the mode of existence which constitutes the difi'erence be- 

 tween the inorganic and the organic bodies, or between the two 

 forms of organic life, viz. animals and plants; so that every 

 fact enunciated in regard to an animal or plant is the record of 

 a symbol of one of the methods of existence, or of the nature of 

 the influences which enter into the life of the being. 



From this point of view the study of these insignificants rises 

 to the rank of the highest philosophical inquiry, and the minute 

 wonders of the microscopist become the agents in the pursuit 

 after the knowledge of the ways of the Infinite, which one could 

 hardly have the temerity to smile at. 



These thoughts have been suggested by the results of some 

 investigations into the thus far doubtful animal nature of the 



