COMMENT AND DISCUSSION. 



OINCE the first editions of Natural Salvation were 

 '^ published, a number of reviewers and critics have 

 described it as " an attempt at a new religion," " a 

 new cult of Nature," and, generally, as something newly 

 devised. 



It would have been better described as, the oldest of all 

 religions, the religion of cell life, the instinct-effort of the 

 protozoon to save itself. Compared with this natural 

 effort at salvation, on the part of the unicells of the 

 ancient earth, the World's five Creeds are as novelties of 

 yesterday. A hundred millions of j'ears ago, natural sal- 

 vation was operative and prevalent ; it is coeval with the 

 earliest metazoons ; the first cult of unicellular life ; the 

 "golden rule" of the' cell. The golden rule of Chris- 

 tianity, indeed, is reflected upward from it, upward from 

 this lowly sentiment for union and cooperation on the part 

 of the component cell life of the body. 



"An opponent," thus styling himself, asks, with a 

 flavor of derision, " Do you actually believe that the pro- 

 tozoa, the unicellular life on the ancient sea beaches, 



