OF THE NATURE OF SPONGES. 65 



a single function or property peculiar to an animal can 

 be discovered."* 



On similar grounds I had previously been induced to ex- 

 clude the sponges from amongst zoophytes, f but it must 

 be allowed that the alleged facts or arguments have made 

 no impression on those zoologists who are most versed in 

 the study of these productions. Thus Grant, Schweigger, 

 Blainville, jNIilne-Edwards, Fleming, Bowerbank, and ]\Ir 

 Edward Forbes, continue to consider them as members of 

 the animal kingdom, although they all admit the absence 

 of those organs and qualities that usually characterise an 

 animal entity. This class of organized beings, says Blain- 

 ville, wliich a great number of characters prove to be ani- 

 mal, is remarkable for that its species are always in more 

 or less considerable masses having no determinate figure, 

 and particularly for containing no distinct animalcules 

 or polypes. Animality becoming less and less distinct as 

 we trace down the series of creations, and in consequence 

 also the animal form, we can recognise, neither in the 

 structure nor in the internal organization of these lowest 

 productions, any thing which recalls the semblance of the 

 animals that precede them. It v»'ould seem as if now no- 

 tliing remained but the common part or polypidom, and that 

 the polypes have disappeared. ^ — Mr E. Forbes, in his lec- 

 tm'es delivered during the past ^vinter in Edinbui-gh, taught 

 the doctrine that sponges are animals in which the life is 

 compound, with no individual concentration, but with a ten- 

 dency to such a concentration, representing the animal na- 



* Lin. Trans xviii. 404-5. 



t Mag. Zool and Bot. i. p. 220. Hist. liiit. Zooph. p. 29. 



+ Manuel d'Aftinologic, p. 528. 



E 



