2*^0 Philosophy of Botany. 



function of the nucleus, the formative element of the cell, and 

 the formula was chanq^ed to " Every nucleus from another 

 nucleus." 



The above-given term. " autogony." proposed by Haeckel, 

 could merely serve to circumscribe the genetic act within the 

 nearest possible compass, until his discovery of the " moners," 

 the simplest living organisms, strengthened our hopes to trace 

 up the thread of life to the present. 



The first complete observations upon the nature of a moner 

 (Protogenes primordialis) had been made by him at Nizza in 

 1864. Other remarkable moners have been found by him 

 later on the Canaries and Lanzarote, and in 1867 in the Straits 

 of Gibraltar. (The complete life history of one of these Cana- 

 rian moners, the orange-colored Protomyxa aurantiaca, with 

 illustration, is given in the " Natiirliche Schopfungs- 

 Geschichte,' of Ernst Haeckel. ninth edition, Vol. I., page 

 168.) Also in the German Ocean, on the Norwegian coast, 

 near Bergen, he found some peculiar moners. An interest- 

 ing Sweetwater species Cienkowski found, and described it 

 imder the name " Vampyreila." Another one Sorakin found 

 and named it " Gloidium." Very recently the number of these 

 organisms has been greatly augmented through the efforts of 

 other investigators. 



All of them are exceedingly small corpuscles, who, indeed, 

 do not merit the name of organisms, a term based upon the 

 assumption that all living beings are made up of organs, wdiich, 

 like the component parts of a machine, harmoniously cooper- 

 ate to effect the activity of the whole. These moners, how- 

 ever, are absolutely without structure or nucleus, consisting of 

 a homogeneous plasma. The entire body during their life- 

 time is nothing more than a mobile particle of jelly, without 

 a permanent form, a minute living speck of an albuminous 

 carlion compound. We assume this homogeneous mass to 

 possess a very complicated molecular structure, which is, of 

 course, neither anatomically nor microscopically demonstrable. 

 The largest moners are of the size of a small pin head ; the 

 smallest are the bacteria, which in all probability belong to 

 this order of beings. More simple and imperfect beings could 

 not be conceived. 



