144 
POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
Had Haeckel’s statements concerning the Monera reached 
their climax when he made the extraordinary announcement 
that, in spite of each individual particle of which their bodies 
are composed having been proved, by the most refined chemical 
and optical tests, to be but an exact counterpart of every other 
particle entering into their composition — eight genera and six- 
teen species were readily distinguishable, a statement so tanta- 
mount to affirming that things which are equal to the same 
thing are not equal to each other, might safely have been left 
to find its own level. But when, in addition to this, an effort 
is made to upset every heretofore proposed classification of the 
Rhizopoda and Protozoa generally, on such untenable evidence 
as that upon which the existence of Bat hy bius , Protamoeba , Pro- 
tomyxa , Protogenes , and Myxastrum — all typical Monera be it 
observed — avowedly depends ; and we are gravely asked to 
believe that 4 the most remarkable of all Monera, Bathybius, 
probably even now always comes into existence by spontaneous 
generation,’ in the depths of the ocean ; it will, I think, be 
freely admitted that the matter demands a much more searching 
investigation than has hitherto been bestowed upon it. 
I shall have occasion, hereafter, to allude to some of the 
minor evils resulting from this speculative style of teaching. 
But lest it be imagined that I am exaggerating the facts, I 
would invite attention to the two subjoined brief passages from 
the writings of Mr. St. Greorge Mivart, which, though apparently 
written under a singularly erroneous view of the scope and 
limits of modern biological inquiry, unmistakably indicate that 
even amongst those who might reasonably be supposed to know 
better, ‘ the doctrines of evolution ’ and spontaneous generation 
are regarded as mere extensions of the same order of phe- 
nomena — relating, on the one hand, to organic life, and, on the 
other, to inorganic matter. 
Thus, referring specially to Haeckel’s observations upon the 
lowest forms of life, Mr. Mivart expatiates on the materialistic 
pantheism and the atheistic deductions from supposed facts 
which later investigations have proved to be fictions, ‘ e. g., the 
supposed organism Bathybius Hceckelii ;’ and declares that ‘ the 
doctrines of evolution logically culminate in three negations — 
namely, of God, of the soul, and of virtue l 
Even Buchner, the earnest and undaunted advocate of freedom 
of thought and teaching, in his treatment of an essentially 
speculative department of knowledge, recognizes the necessity 
of rejecting mere hypothetical evidence in dealing with natural 
science. In his remarkable work, Kraft und Stofff whilst 
* An excellent translation of Buchner’s work, entitled Force mid Matter , 
edited by Mr. T. F. Colling wood, F.G.S., has gone through two editions 
since 1864. 
