THE "GENERAL MORPHOLOGY" 203 



be compared. Linne's three rigid kingdoms — 

 animal, plant, and mineral — needed definitions in 

 harmony with the new ideas. Haeckel himself 

 had discovered the *' monera," the living particles 

 of plasm that did not seem to have reached the 

 stage of the true cell. Here, clearly, was the 

 lowest level of the living. At the same time we 

 reach the most complex specimen of the inorganic 

 from the morphological point of view — that is to 

 say, the most interesting in its individual form — 

 the crystal. The differences begin to give way. 

 What marvellously similar functions ! From the 

 dead mother-water is built up, purely by chemico- 

 physical laws, the beautiful structure of the crystal. 

 From the lowest living particle of plasm without 

 any special organs, as we see in the radiolaria, 

 are formed the beautiful siliceous frames that 

 Haeckel had collected in such quantities at Mes- 

 sina. Is it more than a hair's breadth to pass from 

 one to the other ? The deeper we go in the study 

 of living things, the slighter become the differences 

 that separate them from ** dead matter." On the 

 other hand, the higher we go in the structure of 

 crystals, the more striking is the resemblance to 

 the living thing. Two chains of thought seem to 

 be started. What we call *' dead " is really alive : 

 what we call living is really subject to the same 

 laws as the " dead." The solution is found in 

 complete Monism. Living and dead are not 

 antithetic. Nature is one ; though we see it in 

 different stages of development. We call one of 

 them the crystal, another the cell, or the moneron, 



