272 Philosophy of Botany. 



In other species, like Varnpyrella and Gloidium, the body 

 divides into four equal parts; in Protomonas and Protomyxa 

 the body at once resolves into a great number of globular- 

 spherules. 



Here, like elsewhere, when science transcends the limits of 

 the perceptible and the domain of experience, venturing into 

 the dark field of the unknown, the investigator must ulti- 

 mately be guided by an ingenious use of the imagination ; of 

 that, wondrous faculty which, left to ramble uncontrolled, leads 

 uf astray into a wilderness of perplexities and errors, a land of 

 mists and shadows; but which, properly controlled by experi- 

 ence and reflection, becomes the nolSest attribute of man, the 

 source of poetic genius, the instrument of discovery in 

 sciences, without the aid of which Newton would never have 

 invented the fluxions, or Davy have discovered the earths and 

 alkalis, nor Roentgen the X rays, nor Columbus have found 

 another continent. 



The clearest and best elaborated hypothesis about organic 

 states preceding the moners is given by Karl von Nageli in 

 his great work, " The Mechanico-physiological Theory of Evo- 

 lution " ■(" JVJechanish-physiologische Theorie der Abstam- 

 mungslehre "), Munich and Leipzig, 1884. 



Before entering upon the micellar* hypothesis of Nageli, ii 

 may be well to state that Haeckel had made distinction be- 

 tween those " Beginnings of Life "' based upon the mode of 

 nutriton, as phytomoners and zoomoners. The first are built 

 up from protoplasma, possessing the faculty to prepare plasson 

 synthetically from inorganic, matter, converting the living 

 force of sunlight into latent chemical energy of organic combi- 

 nations. 



The other class, or zoomoners, are plasma eaters, consist 

 of zooplasma and cannot transmute inorganic matter into 

 plasma. They live upon the plasma of the preformed phyto- 

 moners, and convert the therein contained energy again into 

 heat and motion. To the phytomoners belong the Chromacese, 

 and also the hypothetical, oldest oi^iginators of all organisms, 



* Micella, diminutive of mica, a grain, crumb, a cell, or as&umed in- 

 termediate state between a molecule and a cell. 



