124 THE HISTORY OF CREATION. 



The former existence of this simplest animal form is, even at 

 present, attested by the fact that the egg-cell of many 

 animals loses its kernel directly after becoming fructified, 

 and thus relapses to the lower stage of development of a 

 cytod without a kernel, like a Moneron. This remarkable 

 occurrence I have interpreted, according to the law of latent 

 inheritance (vol. i. p. 205), as a phylogenetic relapse of the 

 cellular form into the original form of a cytod. The 

 Monerula, as we may call this egg-cytod without a kernel, 

 repeats then, according to the biogenetic principle (vol ii. p. 

 33), the most ancient of all animal forms, the common pri- 

 mary form of the animal kingdom, namely, the Moneron. 



The second ontogenetic process consists in a new kernel 

 being formed in the Monerula, or egg-cytod, which thus 

 returns again to the value of a true egg-cell. According to 

 this, we must look upon the simple animal cell, containing a 

 kernel, or the single-celled primaeval animal- — which may 

 still be seen in a living state in the Amcebce of the present 

 day — as the second step in the series of phylogenetic forms 

 of the animal kingdom. Like the still living simple 

 Amoebae, and like the naked egg-cells of many lower 

 animals (for example, of Sponges and Medusae, etc.), which 

 cannot be distinguished from them, the remote phyletic 

 primary Amoebae also were perfectly simple naked-cells, 

 which moved about in the Laurentian primaeval ocean, 

 creeping by means of the ever-changing processes of their 

 body-substance, and nourishing and propagating themselves 

 in the same way as the Amoebae of the present day. (Com- 

 pare vol. i. p. 188, and vol. ii. p. 54.) The existence of this 

 Amoeba-like, single-celled prirrmry form of the whole animal 

 kingdom is unmistakably indicated by the exceedingly im- 



