I20 



THE BEGINNINGS OF LIFE. 



cell. It remains in the lowest imaginable grade of 

 organic individuality/ Professer Haeckel afterwards 

 says: — ^The Monera are indeed Protista. They are 

 neither animals nor plants. They are organisms of 

 the most primitive kind: among which the distinc- 

 tion between animals and plants does not yet exist 

 But the ^ term " organism '"* itself seems scarcely ap- 

 plicable to these simplest forms of life; for in the 



A 



whole conception of the "organism" is especially 

 implied the construction of the whole from dis- 

 similar parts, — from organs or limbs. At least, two 

 separate parts must be united to complete the descrip- 

 tion of a body as an organism in this original sense. 

 Every true Amoeba, every true (i. e. nucleus-including) 

 animal and vegetable cell, every animal-egg, is, in this 

 sense_, already an elementary organism, composed of 

 two different organs, the inner nucleus and the outer 



Protoplasma) . Compared with 



■matter 



Monera 



nourishment, growth, and reproduct 



But 



m 





i 



I 



leaves, I found t 

 -ball, per: 



\ 



^ 



ma 



^ of an inch . 

 slowness, and ; 

 means of alterna 



roonded portion 

 5 stance of Yrotam 



and homogeneou 

 a process of fissii 



organs." Only in a physiological sense can we still 

 call them organisms • as individual portions of organic 

 matter, which fulfil the essential life-functions of all ^.^J' I have showr 



_ 1 lion of a „„._ • 



^ 4e extraordinary 

 P*^ for the impor 



";■ °f ^ Senuine arc 

 **«d this quest 



all these different functions are not yet limited to dif- 

 ferent parts. They are all, still, executed equally by 

 every part of the body i.' 



1 Prof. Haeckel then continues :— ' If the natural history of the 

 Monera is already, on these grounds, of the highest interest as well for \ coj^jj^^' ""ly corc, 



morphology as for physiology, this interest will be still more increased ( ^^ ^ °f the pr , 



1 „,i ^^ the < 



%i ' 7 cone, 



