^oSmal ApJuTisSl] Primordial Tyjpe of Animal Life, 229 
mentality these shells are constructed, functions which assuredly 
do not belong to it, and even become but partially manifest when 
we arrive at the highest or Amoeban Order of Ehizopods. 
This grave misconception would seem to have chiefly originated 
in the descriptions published on the one hand, respecting the 
primordial simplicity of the gelatinous particle which constitutes 
the body of the Foraminifer ; and, on the other, regarding the 
marvellous functions this particle is supposed to perform. In short, 
we have been expected to believe that, in these the lowest forms of 
animal existence, important vital effects can be, and in point of fact 
are, produced in the absence of adequate causes ; as if nature had 
here stepped aside from the path of law to trifle on the very 
threshold of organic creation. 
But lest it be imagined that I am overstating the case, let me 
quote a paragraph from Dr. Carpenter's work on the Foraminifera, 
which is at the same time the most recent and the most elaborate 
treatise we possess on the subject. In speaking of the protoplasm 
of this family of the Ehizopoda, he describes it as a substance which 
" does not present any such difi'erentiation as is necessary to con- 
stitute what is commonly understood as ' organization ' even of the 
lowest degree and simplest kind ; so that the physiologist has here a 
case in which those vital operations which he is accustomed to see 
caused hy an elaborate apparatus are performed without any special 
instruments whatever ; a little particle of homogeneous jelly arrang- 
ing itself into a greater variety of forms than the fabled Proteus, 
laying hold of its food without members, swallowing it without a 
mouth, digesting it without a stomach, appropriating its nutritious 
material without absorbent vessels or a circulating system, moving 
from place to place without muscles, feeling (if it has any power to 
do so) without nerves, propagating itseK without genital apparatus, 
and not only this, but in many instances forming shelly coverings 
of a symmetry and complexity not surpassed by those of any testa- 
ceous animal." * 
Now let us see how far this description can be said to apply to 
the animal of the Foraminifera, or, indeed, how far it can be said 
truly to portray the vital powers of any of the Ehizopoda what- 
ever. But in order to do this, it is necessary that the various points 
touched upon should be considered, with reference to each of the 
three Orders into which the Ehizopoda have been divided, in virtue 
of their ascending degrees of protoplasmic differentiation. 
First, then, as regards the lowest and simplest known Order of 
animal being — that to which the Foraminifera are now unani- 
mously referred — in which there occurs the smallest amount of 
deviation from homogeneity in the protoplasm, and no definite 
nucleus or contractile vesicle have as yet made their appearance, 
* Carpenter, ' iBtroduction to the Study of the Foraminifera,' Preface, p. vii. 
