PROPAGATION OF MONERA. 187 
then becomes rounded off, and now appears as an indepen- 
dent individual, which commences anew the simple course 
of the vital phenomena of nutrition and propagation. In 
other Monera (Vampyrella), the body in the process of 
propagation does not fall into two, but into four equal pieces, 
and in others, again (Protomonas, Protomyxa, Myxastrum), 
at once into a number of small globules of mucus, each of 
which again, by simple growth, becomes like the parent 
body. Here it is evident that the process of propagation 
is nothing but a growth of the organism beyond tts own 
individual limit of size. 
The simple method of propagation of the Moneron by self- 
division is, in reality, the most universal and most widely 
spread of all the different modes of propagation ; for by the 
same simple process of division, cells also propagate them- 
selves. Cells are those simple organic individuals, a large 
number of which constitute the bodies of most organisms, 
the human body not excepted. With the exception of the 
organisms of the lowest order, which have not even the 
perfect form of a cell (Monera), or during life only repre- 
sent a single cell (many Protista and single-celled plants), 
the body of every organic individual is composed of a great 
number of cells. Every organic cell is to a certain degree 
_ an independent organism, a so-called “ elementary organism,” 
or an “individual of the first order.” Every higher organ- 
ism is, in a measure, a society or a state of such variously 
shaped elementary individuals, variously developed by divi- 
sion of labour. ** Originally every organic cell is only a 
single globule of mucus, like a Moneron, but differing from 
it in the fact that the homogeneous albuminous substance 
has separated itself into two different parts, a firmer albu- 
