^ouSmlTinTnTrs^^^^^ i'he Primordial Tijpe of Animal Life. 281 
agency than that of mere molecular aggregation. Amongst the 
Amoeban Ehizopods I formerly endeavoured to show that unless we 
are prepared to deny the evidence of our senses, we must admit the 
presence of a selective and adaptative power, whereby, in the midst 
of inorganic materials of the most varied kind, only those which are 
best suited to the wants of the animal are picked out and their 
particles arranged, in an order and with a degree of regularity 
which it becomes impossible otherwise to account for. But, strange 
as it may appear, there exists no room for doubt, that although the 
Amoeban Ehizopods are those in which the development of some- 
thing akin to organization has reached its highest limit, by far the 
greatest amount of symmetry and intricacy of shell-structure is 
attained, not by them, but by the Foraminifera and Polycystina, 
which are the simplest as regards protoplasmic constitution. Of a 
truth, there is something more in the "simplicity" of these humble 
exponents of vitality than has heretofore been conceded to them ! 
I am quite ready to allow that, in claiming the mode of nutrition 
above indicated for the Foraminifera (and also for the Polycystina, 
from whom they differ in no respect except the material of which 
the shells are composed, the mode in which the shell-material is 
disposed, and the ultimate forms which it is made to assume), I 
virtually connect together within the limits of one subdivision of 
organic nature, structures which exhibit vital phenomena which 
belong to another. That is to say, whilst the mode of nutrition 
maintained by me as prevailing in the two lower Orders of the 
Khizopoda would establish their title to be regarded as vegetables, 
that which prevails in the highest or Amoeban series leaves no room 
for doubting that they are strictly animal in their nature. The 
difficulty is admitted. But, difficulty or no difficulty, there is no 
gainsaying the facts ; and unless we are inclined to increase rather 
than diminish difficulty by constituting a neutral and intermediate 
group, half animal, half plant, in which to include the lowest series 
of Ehizopods from the one side and such organisms as the Diatoms 
from the other, there is no help for it but to acknowledge that our 
knowledge fails in this instance to keep pace with our facts, and to 
wait patiently for the time when these seeming anomalies may 
admit of scientific reconciliation. Under any aspect of the matter, 
let us insist on the production of the most complete evidence before 
we permit those who have a preconceived hypothesis of primordial 
life to support, to beguile us, even if they succeed in beguihng 
themselves, into a belief which is as incompatible with reason as 
it is with observation. 
If we attempt to apply the description given in a preceding 
page of the vital properties of the Foraminifera to the families 
which may with propriety be ranged side by side on the second or 
intermediate Order of the Ehizopoda, in virtue of their possessing 
