328 PHILOSOPHICAL NOTES OX 



co-ojDeration Avhicb is needed for the health, vigour, and progress 

 of each colony of composite cells. 



In other words — the two possible hypotheses are — 

 (a.) Variation introduced from without as a parasite ; and 

 (Jb.) Variation occurring within, after uniform cells had been 

 grouped into colonies. 



But Berkeley says that in " Phaenogams, parenchymatous cells 

 sometimes contain spiral threads," and although in the generality 

 of Alga? they are not discoverable, yet "there are undoubted 

 instances of spiral threads in Algae." 



T^ow this looks very much as if these erratic spiral threads 

 got into the parenchymatous cells of phaenogams, and among the 

 cells of Algce, as parasites, that is, they found their way into 

 them from imthout. Add to this that bacteriologists recognize the 

 existence in complex bodies of spiral microbes, as erratic parasites, 

 introduced from without, and the reader will see that it does not 

 require great stretch of the imagination to conceive that the 

 genesis of the vascular system in the evolution of plants may have 

 been brought about by the introduction of spiral microbes into 

 the colonies of wholly cellular plants. This is the more conceiv- 

 able because Algas, the origins of all vascular plants, have no 

 hardened epidermis, and their cells are often embedded in a 

 gelatinous matrix, through which a parasite, especially of a screw 

 form, could easily work its Avay. Indeed, we know that even 

 spermatozoa are able to work their way through the gelatinous 

 envelope of the oviun in order to reach their distination. 



When one hears lectures on microbes, one begins to ask 

 himself the question — is there any living thing that is not either 

 a microbe pure and simple, or in the physiology or pathology of 

 wliich some microbe does not play a part ? From what we hear 

 and read, microbes would appear to ha\e " a finger in every pie 

 of life." 



Many diseases are now said to be the growth of and the 

 poisonous action of microbes. 



Putrefaction and the production of ptomaines are said to be 

 the work of microbes. 



The production of indigo, tlie disappearance of sugar in 

 l)eetroot juice, the production of alcohol and vinegar, of curds and 

 cheescj the nitrogenous substances of leguminous plants, the 

 digestion of cellulose in the stomach and intestines of herbivora, 



