180 HAECKEL 



creatures that were below the level of the true cell. 

 It is, at all events, certain that there are to-day 

 large numbers of the unicellular beings known as 

 the bacteria in which no nucleus has yet been dis- 

 covered by the most sceptical Thomas with the 

 most powerful microscopes and best technical 

 appliances of our time. It is the same with the 

 chromacea (chroococci, oscillaria, nostoc-algse), 

 very lowly primitive plants whose whole body con- 

 sists of a globule or granule of living plasm. How- 

 ever, here again the question is no longer of the 

 first importance, now that evolution is entirely 

 and generally accepted. At the time we are dis- 

 cussing the method chosen was all-important. 

 Haeckel drew no conclusions without a solid basis. 

 He believed he could give ocular proof of the 

 existence of beings that were below the level of the 

 cell. It was clear, at all events, that research in 

 this department was only in its beginning, and 

 could pour out wonder after wonder before the 

 world recovered from its first fright over Dar- 

 winism. 



Then there was the other end of the system — 

 man. Here again it was not merely a question of 

 concluding on philosophic grounds that man must 

 have descended from the lower animals. Huxley 

 had dealt in England with the question of man 

 and the ape on the strict lines of zoology. He 

 came to the important conclusion that man difiers 

 less zoologically from the highest apes, the gorilla 

 and chimpanzee, than they do from the lowest apes. 

 He proved his point by a technical study of skulls 



