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T//£ BEGINNINGS OF IIFE. 



121 



One of the most rudimentary^ and at the same time 

 the first member of this group observed by Prof. Haeckel^ 

 he named 'Protammba primltlva. ^ I observed it/ he 



says, ^ for the first time at Jena, in the summer of 1863, 

 in water which I had brought from a small pond in the 

 Tautenburg forest (opposite Dornburg, on the right 

 bank of the Saal). The bottom of this shallow little 

 pond is thickly covered with fallen decayed beech- 

 leaves, and in the fine brown mud, among the decayed 

 leaves, I found the little Protama^ba/ It was a minute 

 plasma-ball, perfectly homogeneous, rather more than 

 TTHTTT *^f ^^ inch in diameter, which moved with extreme 



slowness, and also 



changed its form 



as slowly, by 



means of alternate protrusions and retractions of bluntly 

 rounded portions of its body-mass. The whole sub- 



r 



stance of Frotatrnjeha primitiva is absolutely structureless 

 and homogeneous. At one time it will multiply itself by 

 a process of fission, whilst, at another time, individuals 



by the extraordinary importance which these v^ry simple organisms 

 possess for the important doctrine of spontaneous generation or arche- 

 gony. I have shown in my " General Morphology" that the accepta- 

 tion of a genuine archegony (once or repeated) has at present become 

 a logical postulate of scientific natural history. Most naturalists who have 

 discussed this question rationally believed that they must designate 

 simple cells as the simplest organism produced thereby, from which 

 all others developed themselves. But every true cell already shows 

 a division into two different parts, i.e. nucleus and plasma. The imme- 

 diate production of such an object from spontaneous generation is 

 obviously only conceivable with difficulty; but it is much easier to 

 conceive of the production of an entirely homogeneous, organic sub- 

 stance, such as the structureless albumen body of the Monera.' 



