Ixviii PROCEEDINGS OF THE 



Stauraxonia — or that an Orchis is founded on a half six-sided am- 

 phithected pyramid — or ihai Homo and Fumaria, Man and Fumitory, 

 are equally reducible to homopleurous Dipleura, of wiiich the fun- 

 damental form is a simple pyramid, with two symmetrically equal 

 lateral halves — appears to be far too fanciful to contribute much to 

 the advance of our science, which, I can only repeat, is essentially a 

 science of observation. We should, indeed, be disposed to class much 

 of such speculation with that Speciesspielerei (or play at species) of 

 museum-zoologists and herbarium-botanists against which Haeckcl 

 so indignantly protests, comparing it to the amusements of col- 

 lectors of postage -stamps and similar trifles, 



A proposition which is, I believe, more or less supported by some 

 philosophical naturalists in this country, as well as on the continent, 

 and much insisted upon by Haeckel, is that there is no such great 

 difference as is commonly supposed between organic (meaning, I 

 presume, living) and inorganic bodies, that the diifcrenccs, indeed, 

 are not absolute, but pass one into the other through intermediates. 

 In support of this view he observes : — 



1. That the idea of organism, as founded on morphological bases, 

 now fails; for the definition of a living organized body as one which is 

 composed of organs or defiiiite heteromorphous parts working together 

 for the benefit of the whole, is invalidated since we have become ac- 

 quainted with numerous absolutely structureless and homogeneous 

 plasma-bodies, Avhich, from this supposed simplicity, he classes under 

 the name of Moneres, such as Protor/enes, Protamoeha, &c. Can this 

 absolute simplicity, however, be really predicated of his Protogenes 

 primordialis and Protamoeha primiiiva described in the note to vol. i. 

 p. 133? He could, indeed, detect no structure under the most powerful 

 instruments ; but these bodies absorbed nutriment, assumed an egg- 

 like form, emitted and withdrew again one to three or four short 

 processes, and finally separated into two halves, each of which gra- 

 dually assumed the parental form, and emitted similar processes. 

 Is not this evidence that a complex structure exists, although so 

 exquisite as to escape detection by any means of observation at our 

 disposal? 



2. That in all the general fundamental properties of matter, there 

 is not the slightest distinction between organisms (I presume always 

 he means living bodies, not dead organic substances) and inorganic 

 matter ; that the reciprocal action of the attractive or cohesive force 

 df the atoms of matter, and the repulsive force of the atoms of ether, 

 are the same and are equally varied in both by the quantitative- 



