107 
minute crystals, rather than the study of organisms or 
minerals minutely. It is difficult to draw the line round 
“ microscopic organisms,” and exclude this, and include 
another group ; but it is not necessary to do so. The Pro- 
tozoa and the smaller Cryptogamia undoubtedly form the 
nucleus, and we may add the Rotifera, many Worms, and 
many Crustacea. The papers of Ernst Haeckel, of Jena, 
one of which we publish herein, should give a new impulse 
to the study of minute forms of life. The determination of 
Bathybius 1 by Professor Huxley must lead to further obser- 
vations of a similar kind, and we may hope to find these 
structureless protoplasmic masses in many and widely different 
situations. One very important and pleasant i - esult to 
which they tend is the shelving of the reiterated doctrines of 
the old school of heterogenists. These persons have pur- 
sued the course of science with great pertinacity, always 
declaring that they could prove the spontaneous formation of 
the lowest organisms known to science, whatever they might 
be at the particular time. At one time it was maggots, then 
the vinegar eel, then ciliated Infusoria, and, lastly, Bacteria, 
which the successive generations of these headlong philo- 
sophers adopted as “ spontaneous ” productions. A thought- 
ful man, disposed to believe in the possibility of the produc- 
tion of living from mineral matter without the intervention 
of previously organized matter, is driven in to holding his 
tongue in the presence of these enthusiastic experimenters, 
lest he should be supposed to believe in their untenable 
dogmas. Whilst we could not believe in the production of 
such definitely-formed organisms as Bacteria and Vibriones 
by a great bound from mineral to vegetable — a method of 
progression which the oldest philosophers denied to nature — 
we can conceive that by very gradual steps the mineral matter 
may become like that which we call organic, and finally 
become organized and of definite form. Bathybius helps us 
a step or two downwards in the mineral direction — so far, 
that the experimental heterogenists must now form slimy 
sheets of protoplasm in their decoctions and hermetically- 
closed reservoirs, or must explain how it is that “ sponta- 
neous generation,” as they believe it, starts high up in the 
scale of life. 
The parasitic or fungus origin of many diseases belongs to 
this branch of microscopical science, and we may here call 
attention to Professor II allier’s views elsewhere noticed more 
fully in this Journal. It appears, from the report of a com- 
mission sent to visit the professor at Jena, that the power 
1 See his paper in the October number, 1868. 
VOL. IX. NEW SER. 
D D 
