26 FUNDAMENTAL PROPERTIES 



place in either of these kingdoms, and they were consequently 

 placed in the one or in the other alternately as the state of 

 knowledge at the time varied, or almost according to the whim of 

 successive writers. But now, at last, after this unseemly bandying 

 to and fro, their proper position is being generally recognised. 



The merit of taking a definite step as regards the classification 

 of these lower organisms rests with Prof. Haeckel, who many 

 years ago said': — "I have made the attempt in my 'General 

 Morphology ' to throw some light upon this systematic chaos, by 

 placing, as a special division between true animals and true plants, 

 all those doubtful organisms of the lowest rank which display no 

 decided affinities nearer to the one side than to the other, or which 

 possess animal and vegetable characters united and mixed in such 

 a manner that, since their discovery, an interminable controversy 

 about their position in the animal or in the vegetable kingdom has 

 continued. Manifestly this controversy becomes reduced to the 

 smallest compass if the disputable and doubtful intermediate forms 

 are separated for the present (though only provisionally) both from 

 the true animals and from the true plants, and united in a special 

 organic 'kingdom.' Thereby we obtain the advantage of being 

 able to distinguish both true animals and true plants by a clear and 

 sharp definition, and, on the other hand, a special proportion of 

 attention is attracted to the very low organisms hitherto so much 

 neglected, and yet so extremely important. 1 have called this 

 boundary kingdom intermediate between the animal and the 

 vegetable kingdoms, and connecting both, the Protista." 



It should be understood, however, that in proposing such a 

 classification Prof. Haeckel by no means wished to establish an 

 absolute wall of separation between these three organic kingdoms. 

 He was and is much more disposed to believe that animals as well 

 as plants have gradually arisen out of modifications which have 

 taken place in the simplest Protista. This primordial organic 

 kingdom he divides into ten groups, in the lowest of which, named 

 Monera, are included mere naked, non-nucleated specks of pro- 

 toplasm. 



This discovery and recognition of such simple creatures as the 

 Monera was in many respects a matter of great importance. 

 Formerly the lowest independent hving units were thought to 

 be ' unicellular organisms ' — that is vesicular units possessing a 



" ' Monograph of Monera.' Translation in "Quarterly Journal of Microscopical 

 Science," July, 1869, p. 230. 



