26 TOILERS IN THE SEA. 



definite purposes. These mechanisms were antici- 

 pated, as it were, from the earliest period, and their 

 formation provided for by the preparatory changes 

 through which the structures had to pass before 

 perfect development could be attained. Can these 

 phenomena be accounted for except through the 

 influence of some wonderful power or agency such as 

 we are now contemplating." l 



However interested we may feel in the solution of 

 the problem of life, there is little prospect of gather- 

 ing much to assist in that solution from the succeed- 

 ing chapters, which had no such design in their 

 composition. The foregoing allusion to the subject 

 is almost parenthetical, induced by the mention of the 

 so-called Bathybius. It may now be abandoned, 

 leaving us free to pursue, as far as we can within the 

 prescribed limits, the history of the little animals 

 which we have brought together under the designa- 

 tion of " Toilers in the Sea." 



1 " Protoplasm, or Life, Force, and Matter," by Lionel S. 

 Beale. London (1870), p. $9. 



