160 Dr. G. C. Wallich on the Type 



without doing violence to the most natural and important of 

 all affinities, namelj those founded on the " structural and 

 physiological conditions of the animal alone." 



But, irrespectively of this, were further proof needed of the 

 error committed in the separation of these three genera on the 

 basis of differences supposed to be more or less constantly 

 observable in the characters of their respective jpseudo'podia^ 

 and the accompanying degrees of " differentiation " said to 

 exist respectively in the external layer of the body, or " ecto- 

 sarc," and the general protoplasmic mass within, or " endosarc," 

 I undertake to show, on l)r. Carpenter's own evidence, that 

 the pseudopodial characters are by no means sufficiently uni- 

 form or sufficiently constant to be depended upon as ordinal 

 distinctions. In short, I hope fo make it clear that the terms 

 " ectosarc " and " endosarc " embody a scientific fiction, and 

 that the sole purpose they serve is to mask our ignorance. 

 The sooner, therefore, they are dispensed with, save as con- 

 venient names for the portions of the sarcode-mass that happen 

 for the time being to constitute the external boundary and the 

 internal mass, tlie sooner may we expect to arrive at an ade- 

 quate idea of the visible characters which distinguish the 

 organism called a Ehizopod *. 



Dr. Carpenter, in defining the characters of the lowest order 

 in his system, namely the Reticularia^ tells us that " in the 

 cases in which the differentiation into ectosarc and endosarc 

 has proceeded furthest, so that that body of the Rhizopod 

 bears the strongest resemblance to an ordinary ' cell ' f (as is 

 the case with Amceba and its allies), a nucleus may be distinctly 

 traced ; in those, on the other hand, in which the original pro- 

 toplasmic condition is most completely retained (as seems to 

 be the case with Grornia and the Foraminifera generally), 

 no nucleus can be distinguished. The same," he says, " ap- 

 pears to be true of the peculiar contractile vesicle, which may 

 be regarded as a vacuole with a defined wall " (' Introduction 

 to the Study of the Foraminifera,' 1862, p. 14). 



Dr. Carpenter afterwards goes on to make the following 



* For a detailed account of my observations on the Rliizopods gene- 

 rally, I would refer the reader to a series of six papers on the Amoeban, 

 Actinophryan, and Diffiugian Rhizopods, contributed by me to the 

 ' Annals ' between April 1863 and March 1864 ; and a paper " On the 

 Poh/q/stina," embodying; a Classitication of the Rhizopods as a whole, and 

 this family in particular, which was published in the ' Quart. Journ. Micr. 

 Soc' for July 1866. 



t Biology and physiology are imdoubtedly under heavy obligations to 

 the "■ cell " doctrine. But it is not saying too much to assert that biolo- 

 gists and physiologists have had a great deal of nasty work cut out for 

 them by the perpetual misapplication and misconception of that doctrine. 



