McCrady.] 184 [April 18, 



I cannot, however, consent to the term " alternation of generation," 

 and consequently cannot accept his representation of the view which 

 constitutes so essential apart of my theory (viz., that the ovum and 

 spermatozoon are really each a protozoon, or that protozoa are really 

 all oozoa) as establishing an alternation of generations throughout 

 the animal kingdom. Indeed there is no alternation of generations; 

 for there is only one generation in which these protozooid individuals 

 conjugate and disappear, and all that results from this conjugation is 

 but one generation. The only alternation there is, is an alternation of 

 individuals or personse, as Haeckel calls them. The consequences, 

 however, are most important, for if, as I claim, the egg and the sper- 

 matozoon are each individual animals, then there is under Huxley's 

 theory of zooids not a single persona in the whole animal ^kingdom, 

 man included. This seems to me a complete reductio ad absurdum of 

 the zooid theory. 



It must be confessed that the term persona, or person, as applied 

 to very lowly organisms, cannot but be harsh to our English ears 

 because we individually associate with the conception of personality 

 an actual, or at least a suspended consciousness ; and we are really 

 without any proof of the existence of consciousness in the animals 

 below man. I have therefore thought of the Greek ds/xag, a body, 

 somebody, as furnishing a less objectionable term. We may call all 

 the various individuals making up a generation demats, a word 

 which involves the notion of personality indeed, but does so with 

 special reference to the body without reference to psychological rela- 

 tions, such as " person " has attracted to itself in English. 



Again, if the view proposed by Mr. Minot be the true one, the 

 explanation of Parthenogenesis suggested above will probably be 

 superseded by his, which is that every egg contains not only the 

 female but the male element of generation, even before the reception 

 of the spermatozoon, and that when the latter is not received there 

 may occur a self-fertilization of the egg; i. e., a parthenogenesis; 

 whereas, if the spermatozoon be received, it will prove itself prepo- 

 tent, and the proper male element of the egg will be expelled in the 

 form of Richtungsblaschen. No one will be better pleased than my- 

 self to see an explanation apparently so satisfactory established by 

 the progress of research. 



Whatever may be the issue on the minor points, it seems to me 

 that one thing is established — I mean the entirely simple character 



