PRO-MORPHOLOGY OF PROTISTA. 7 1 



he pointed out in most organisms, both in the general form 

 of the body and in the form of the individual parts. This 

 ideal fundamental form, or type, which is determined by the 

 number, position, combination, and differentiation of the 

 component j^arts, stands in just the same relation to the real 

 organic form as the ideal geometrical fundamental form of 

 crystals does to their imperfect real form. In most bodies 

 and parts of the bodies of animals and plants this fundamental 

 form is a pyramid. It is a regular pyramid in the so-caUed 

 " regular radiate " forms, and an irregular pyramid in the 

 more higlily differentiated, so-caUed " bilaterally symmetri- 

 cal " forms. (Compare the plates in the first volume of my 

 General Morphology, pp. 5.56-558.) Among the Protista this 

 pyramidal type, which prevails in the animal and vegetable 

 kingdom, is on the whole rare, and instead of it we have 

 either quite irregular (amorphous) or more simple, regular 

 geometrical types ; especially frequent are the sphere, the 

 cylinder, the ellipsoid, the spheroid, the double cone, the cone, 

 the regTilar polygon (tetrahedron, hexhahedi-on, octahedron, 

 dodecahedron, icosahedron), etc. AH the fundamental forms 

 of the pro-morphological system, which are of a low rank in 

 that system, prevail in the JProtista. However, in many 

 Protista there occur also the higher, regular, and bilateral 

 tjrpes, fundamental forms which predominate in the animal 

 and vegetable kingdoms. In this respect some of the Protista 

 are frequently more closely allied to animals (as the 

 Acyttaria), others more so to plants (as the Radiolaria). 



With regard to the palceontological development of the 

 kingdom Protista, we may form various, but necessarily very 

 unsafe, genealogical hypotheses. Perhaps the individual 

 classes of the kingdom are independent tribes, or phyla, 



