224 
1858, and finally completely established in 1860, by Max 
Schultze. 1 I myself have laboured for a number of years 
to maintain and extend this theory. 2 By no phenomena 
is the correctness of this theory so thoroughly proved, and, 
at the same time, in so simple and unassailable a manner, 
as by the vital phenomena of the Monera, by the processes of 
their nourishment and reproduction, sensitiveness and motion, 
which entirely proceed from one and the same very simple 
substance, a true “ primitive slime.” 
The protoplasm theory might now be considered as almost 
universally recognised if there had not arisen from one quarter 
for the last six years a continued energetic protest against 
this “ heresy.” As there are no very strong proofs against 
it to justify this opposition, we 'would not have alluded to it 
here if the influence of its opposer had not lent it an apparent 
importance, and if at the moment I write this a detailed 
treatise for the complete refutation of the “ sarcode heresy ” 
had not been published. Since 1862 Reichert, the professor 
of human anatomy at Berlin, who was elected in 1858 as the 
successor of the immortal Johannes Muller, has not only 
attempted, in a series of papers, to overthrow the protoplasm 
theory, but to prove all the previous observations on the sar- 
code-movements of the Rhizopoda to be so many gross errors. 
Tbe currents of the protoplasm-threads are made out to be 
but waves of contraction of solid threads, and the granules 
carried along by the currents but “ moving loops ” of these 
threads. Ramifications and anastomoses of the pseudopods 
are never present, but have only, as “ wonderful microscopic 
illusions, pleased the fantasy of observers,” &c. 
These extraordinary assertions were brought forward by 
Reichert with the greatest assurance after he had examined, 
during only a few weeks’ residence at Trieste, “ a not accu- 
rately identified species of Miliola and Rotalia.” And as the 
result of these investigations he declared that all previous 
observers of the Rhizopoda had fallen into the grossest errors 
concerning their organization ! Among these observers are 
Dujardin, Max Schultze, Huxley, Claparede, Krohn, Johan- 
1 Max Schultze, “ Ueber innere Bewegungs-Erscheinungen bei Diato- 
meen ‘ Muller’s Arcliiv,’ 1858, p. 330. Max Schultze, “Ueber Cornu- 
pira ‘Arcliiv fur Naturgesch, 1860, p. 287. Max Schultze, “Ueber 
Muskelkorperchen und das was man eine Zelle zu nennen babe ‘ Reichert 
und Du Bois-Rpymond’s Arcliiv,’ 1861, p. 1. Max Schultze, ‘Das Proto- 
plasma der Rhizopoden und der Pflanzenzellen,’ Leipsig, 1863. 
2 ‘ Monographie der Radiolarien,’ 1862, pp. 89, 116; also “Ueber den 
Sarcodekorper der Rhizopoden in * Zeitschr. fiir wissenschaftl. Zool.,’ 
Bd. xv, 1865, p. 342, Taf. xxvi; and in ‘ Generelle Morpkologie,’ vol. i, 
pp. 269, 289. 
