na THE PSYCHIC LIFE 



omission of all polemical features, it is in substance 

 as follows: 



In giving the psychology of these microscopic creatures the 

 name of cellular psychology, I have not invented a new term, nor 

 given a new sense to an old one. Quite some time before me, M. 

 Haeckel had made a study of cellular psychology and his investiga- 

 tions, like my own, were based entirely upon the observation of 

 animal and vegetable micro-organisms. Furthermore, micro-or- 

 ganisms being represented by a single cellule (and this doctrine is 

 now universally accepted), the study of their psychical manifesta- 

 tions can, in my opinion, with perfect propriety be styled cellular 

 psychology. 



M. Richet takes exception to the use of the latter expression; 

 but he does so while substituting for the old definition of the word 

 cell, one quite his own. To him, a micro-organism like the Eu- 

 glena, which has an eye, a mouth, an aesophagus, and a contractile 

 vesicle, would not be a cellule. To admit the latter view, means, 

 in his own words, to become involved in illusion respecting the 

 word cellule. In our judgment, the question here is by no means 

 one of optical illusion, but one of verbal definition. What, ac- 

 cordingly, is a cellule? " For the physiologist and psychologist," 

 says M. Richet, " the cellule has not a distinct entity, or, at least, 

 that entity, that unity, lacks an essential condition, namely, homo- 

 geneity." 



To M. Richet, the cellule is a homogeneous body; a body that 

 comprises differentiated parts is not a cellule. 



It is unnecessary to remark upon how far the latter concep- 

 tion of a cellule diverges from the usual and commonly accepted 

 definition of the word. Hitherto, scientists have understood by 

 the term cellule, a body made up of the union of two essential 

 parts, a quantity of protoplasm and a nucleus. The scientific world 

 argues as to whether elementary forms exist which do not contain 

 a nucleus and which should be termed cytodes, as proposed by M. 

 Haeckel. The careful observation of micro-organisms by means of 

 perfected technical processes has enabled us to discover hundreds 

 of nuclei in the very cellules which M. Haeckel classed among the 

 cytodes. Such is notably the case with many algae and lower-class 

 fungi. The Moners a group of micro-organisms believed to have 

 no nucleus grow numerically less and less, in proportion as they 

 are more carefully studied. It is true, we are now no more able 



