Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 11.djvu/672

652 combination, while others see in it a multitude of such combinations; others, again, regard it as an emulsion or intimate blending of albuminous and fatty particles. For a general biological view of the Moneres this is of subordinate interest; for, however the case may be, the creature is at all events, from the anatomical point of view, perfectly simple—an organism without organs. It proves incontrovertibly that life does not depend on the coöperation of different organs, but on a certain chemico-physical constitution of amorphous matter—on that albuminous substance which we call sarcode or protoplasm—a nitro-carbon compound in the semi-fluid state.

Hence, life is not a result of organization, but vice versa. Amorphous protoplasm gives rise to organized forms. Having already, in previous writings, called attention to the high importance of the Moneres from this and other points of view, I can here only refer to those papers. At present I must content myself with pointing out the importance of the Moneres in connection with the great question of the origin of life. The oldest organisms, sprung by spontaneous generation (Urzengung) from inorganic matter, must have been Moneres.

It is precisely the general importance of the Moneres for the solution of the greatest of biological problems that makes them a stumbling-block and a scandal to the opponents of the doctrine of evolution. These men, of course, take every opportunity to dispute the existence of Moneres, exactly as was done in the case of Eozoön Canadense, the much-disputed oldest fossil of the Laurentian formation. The most experienced and competent students of the class Rhizopoda—at their head Prof. Carpenter, of London, and the distinguished anatomist Max Schultze, of Bonn, deceased—are firmly convinced that the American Eozoön is a genuine Rhizopod—a Polythalamium, near akin to Polytrema. I have myself for several years made a special study of Rhizopods. I have minutely examined several fine preparations of Eozoön made by Carpenter and Schultze, and I have not the slightest doubt that it is a genuine Polythalamium, and not a mineral.

But, just because of the extraordinary fundamental importance of Eozoön, and because the discovery of that fossil adds several millions of years to the earth's organic history, making the primitive Silurian formations to appear recent by comparison, and rendering a great service to the doctrine of evolution, therefore it is that the opponents of that doctrine so stoutly affirm that it is not of organic origin at all, but purely mineral. But as the high importance of Eozoön was placed in its proper light by these unavailing attacks of ill-informed opponents, so is it, too, with the Moneres—with or without Bathybius. The true Moneres remain, forming an immovable foundation-stone of the doctrine of evolution.—Kosmos.