324 Dr. Wallich on the RMzopods. 



Annelids being invariably found made up of mineral particles, 

 with sponge-spicules and minute Globigerine shells, or a 

 mixture of these in proportion as the mud at the bottom of the 

 ocean, on whicli the creatures lived, was more or less com- 

 posed of varying quantities of these materials. This opens 

 out a very important question, which may be expressed as 

 follows : — Is there, or is there not, any connexion in a physio- 

 logical sense between increased or diminished complexity of 

 structure in the tests of the various testaceous families, and an 

 increased or diminished complexity in the organization of the 

 creatures inhabiting them ? For, should the answer be in the 

 negative, the only reasonable inference to be drawn from the 

 facts is that mere differences in the material, mode of build- 

 ing up, and outward form and appearance of the tests, furnish 

 no trustworthy characters for generic or even specific distinc- 

 tion. Or, to take the case of the Foraminifera, it equally be- 

 comes a question whether increased complexity in what Dr. 

 Carpenter very appropriately calls " the plan of growth " of 

 the shells can be regarded as indicating coexistent increase or 

 decrease in the complexity of organization of the animal to 

 which the tests belong. In this instance, however, it seems 

 out of our power, in the present state of what ought to be 

 termed our ignorance rather than our knowledge, to furnish 

 any satisfactory answer, inasmuch as no means or methods of 

 observation are available, even with the highest powers of 

 the microscope, which can enable us to resolve those subtle 

 traces of organization, the existence of which we may suspect, 

 but cannot demonstrate. To assert, however, that highly com- 

 plex functional effects take place in the bodies of these so 

 termed unsurpassably simple creatures, in the absence of any 

 adequate signs of organization, is so absurd that the wonder 

 is that such a proposition should ever have been seriously pro- 

 pounded and unreservedly accepted. In touching on the 

 samiB question in relation to a very different class of organisms, 

 namely the Desmids and Diatoms, the case was thus stated 

 by me : — " We know that complex vital processes are carried 

 on in even the lowest types of being. But because we neither 

 know nor are able to conceive lioio they are carried on we are 

 not warranted in taking for granted that what appears to us, 

 even with our most refined appliances, to consist of a mere 

 particle of structureless jelly, must necessarily be as primor- 

 dially simple as it appears " *. 



To this opinion I would still adhere : but a voice infinitely 



* " Are the Desmids and Diatoms ' Simple Cells ' ? " G. C. Wallich, 

 ' Popular Science Keview,' April 1877, p. Ibl. 



