40 SPONTANEOUS GENERATION OF CYTODES. 



wall, though it has given name to the whole, is found 

 not to be a constant or essential part of the structure of 

 the body, for in certain cases an enclosing membraneous 

 wall is never formed around the nucleated mass of 

 protoplasm. But the nucleated cell, it is to be 

 observed, does not represent the lowest stage of 

 organic and living individuality, A more elementary 

 phase of living existence is found in the cytode, a body 

 which consists merely of a shapeless mass of proto- 

 plasm without a nucleus. 



Of cytodes, nucleated cells and tissues developed 

 from them, the bodies of animals are composed. But 

 there are in Nature animal organisms of so simple 

 a character as to consist of no more than a single 

 cell, such as the amoeba, or even no more than a 

 cytode, such as a protamoeba. 



The amorphous living substance composing 

 cytodes is assumed by Evolutionists to have origi- 

 nated in the first instance by spontaneous genera- 

 tion. 



The elementary organism thus first presented 

 itself as a cytode, and subsequently by the development 

 of a nucleus in its substance and a cell-wall around it 

 the phase of complete nucleated cell was attained. 



From such hypothetical original single-cell ani- 

 mals like the amoeba which, it is assumed, already 

 existed in the early part of the primordial time, 

 Professor Haeckel thinks it may be affirmed a priori 

 that similar cells were produced by proliferation — 

 that these new amcebse formed by aggregation 



