10 THE USES AND ORIGIN 



motion which was potential in its food ; and molecular 

 motion thus liberated becomes a cause of further active 

 movements in the organism — provided its constitution is, 

 at the time, able to accommodate itself to such powerful 

 internal causes of chanpje. Where it is not in such a 

 condition the assimilation of much solid food is followed by 

 an interval of apparent rest, during which a thorough re- 

 adjustment of the molecular constitution of the organism 

 occurs. In the latter case the encysted mass of living 

 matter may after a time divide into a swarm of smaller 

 though most active Monads. Or else traces of higher 

 organization may reveal themselves in the encysted mass 

 as a whole — so that the previous Amoeba shortly emerges 

 from its cyst as an active creature of larger size and higher 

 type. 



Ciliated Infusoria, Kotifers, and other forms of animal 

 life of different degrees of complexity, may take origin in 

 such encysted masses of protoplasm, forming the resting 

 stages of previously active Amoebae.* The extent to which 

 this occurs, however, and the real significance of the pro- 

 cesses, are subjects upon which all naturalists are far 

 from being of the same opinion. 



Be the interpretation, however, what it may, the fact 

 remains that Ciliated Infusoria, Rotifers, and other 

 organisms may be seen to develop directly from encysted 

 matrices of vegetal or of Amoeboid origin. Nay more, any 

 forms of the animal series thus initiated exhibit, in an 

 even more marked degree, the fundamental properties of 

 the Amoeba — the power, that is, of executing well- 

 marked independent movements and of feeding upon 

 solid food. And as channels for the reception of such food 

 become more and more formed, we may find the organ- 



* "Beginnings of Life," vol. ii., chaps, xxi. and xxii. 



