Ernst Haeckel

“ So has one of the main supports of the modern development doctrine fallen, and it will yet be found that all its other supports rest upon illusions and on error. The whole fabric of Darwinism is simply an air-castle, the theory of natural selection is a soap bubble, and the doctrine of descent is not true."
Such is the gist of many an article published during the past year in all sorts of periodicals. Simply and solely from the supposed non-existence of Bathybius it is rashly inferred that there is no such thing at all as Moneres, and that the doctrine of evolution is badly hit. ”

“ Each of these organs again originally consists only of cells, and in all of these cells the essential constituent parts are only the germ and protoplasm: the germ as the elementary organ of propagation and heredity, protoplasm as the elementary organ of all the other functions, sensation, motion, alimentation, and adaptation. Cells and cytods, therefore, are true elementary organisms, independent minute forms of life, which either in the lowest existences continue to live independently, or in the higher organisms combine in numbers to form a community. ”

“ By examining these moners we shall gain a clear conception of the nature of protoplasm, and understand the important biological questions connected with the theory.
Some moners live in fresh water, and others in the sea. They are as a rule invisible to the naked eye, but some are as large as the head of a pin, and may be distinguished without the aid of a microscope. When completely at rest a moner commonly assumes the shape of a simple sphere. Either the surface of the body is quite smooth, or numerous exceedingly delicate threads radiate from it in all directions. ”

“ 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. ”

“ THE tem protoplasm, from Gr. πρῶτος, first, and πλύσμα, form, is applied to the supposed original substance from which all living beings are developed, and which is the universal concomitant of every phenomenon of life. All that is comprehended for brevity under the terra life, whether the growth of plants, the flight of birds, or a train of human thought, is thus supposed to be caused by corporeal organs which either themselves consist of protoplasm, or have been developed out of it. ”

“ Whether Bathybius is or is not a true Moneres, at all events we already know with certitude a number of true Moneres whose fundamental importance is quite independent of Bathybius. We know that even now there exist in the waters of our planet a number of very low forms of life, which are not only the simplest of all actually observed organisms, but even the simplest imaginable of living things. ”

“ According to the plastid theory recently advanced, the great variety of vital phenomena is the consequence of the infinitely delicate chemical difference in the composition of protoplasm, and it considers protoplasm to be the sole active life-substance. This theory puts force and matter in living organisms into the same causal connection which has long been accepted for force and matter in inorganic bodies. This conception has been rapidly matured, especially in the past twenty years, through the more exact information obtained in regard to the lowest kinds of organisms. ”

“ Indeed, if at the present moment we run over the names distinguished in the several sciences into which Natural Knowledge may be divided—in Physics, in Chemistry, in Botany, in Zoology—we find but few investigators who can be said to have thoroughly mastered the whole range of any one of them. ”

“ In every real cell there is, besides protoplasm, and while still alive and independent, a second important constituent, the cellular germ, so called (nucleus or cytoblast) ; but even this germ consists of an albuminous chemical compound which is closely related to protoplasm, and was orginally produced from it by an exceedingly slight chemical alteration. The germ is usually a smaller and firmer formation within the protoplasm of the cell. ”

“ Their whole body, in the fully-developed and reproductive condition, consists of nothing but a little mass of structureless protoplasm, whose changing, variable processes all at once discharge the various life functions—movement, sensation, transmutation of matter, nutrition, growth, and reproduction. ”

“ The seminal elements of the male are also only simple cells, and the entire mysterious process of fructification is after all nothing but the fusion or concrescence of two different cells, the one a female egg-cell, and the other a male semen-cell. In consequence of this fusion the germs of the two combined cells dissolve, and therewith the young, newly-generated individual begins his existence as a simple cytod, or a small germless ball of protoplasm. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Inasmuch as the idea of an organic cell, as now adopted by histologists, rests on the presence of two different essential parts in this elementary organism, the internal cell and the external protoplasm, we must distinguish also two different kinds of elementary organisms: germless cytods, as moners for example, and the real germ-inclosing cells, which originate from the former by secreting in the interior of the small mass of protoplasm a true germ or nucleus. ”

“ The single cell of the simplest kind is able to exist as an independent organism. Many of the lowest plants and animals, and also many neutral protista (which are neither animals nor plants) , retain for life the character of a simple cell. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The chemistry of to-day, with its imperfect methods of investigation, is totally powerless before these intricate organic compounds, and it is possible only to surmise, from the infinitely varied physiological qualities of the numberless kinds of plastids, the infinite variety of plastidules out of which they are composed. ”

“ As the protoplasm of the bathybius is not yet as much as individualized, while in the case of other moners there are individual lumps of constant sizes, it follows that the moners are to be regarded as the natural bodies which effect the transition from inorganic to organic Nature. ”

“ 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. ”

“ More important than any of the individual discoveries which are contained in Huxley's numerous less and greater researches on the most widely different animals, are the profound and truly philosophical conceptions which have guided him in his inquiries, have always enabled him to distinguish the essential from the unessential, and to value special empirical facts chiefly as a means of arriving at general ideas. ”

“ I. History of the Moneres.—In the spring of 1864 I observed in the Mediterranean, at Villafranca, near Nice, little floating globules of slime, one millimetre or half a line in diameter, which interested me very much. Under the microscope each of these globules looked like a little star, its centre consisting of a far smaller, structureless globule, while from the outer surface radiated several thousand exceedingly fine threads. Close examination with high powers showed that the whole body of the star-shaped thing consisted of simple albuminous cell-substance—sarcode, or protoplasm ”

“ But it was not till eleven years later, in 1868, that Huxley, with the aid of a very powerful microscope, made a new and thorough investigation of this ooze, calling in also the aid of chemical analysis. He discovered the naked, free, formless protoplasm-masses, which, together with the Globigerinæ and the coccoliths, make up the great bulk of the ooze. "These masses are of different sizes, some being visible to the naked eye, others extremely minute. ”

“ But from the fact that the Challenger Expedition did not rediscover living Bathybius it surely does not follow that the observations made in other localities by the Porcupine Expedition were faulty. Or, from the fact that the Challenger Expedition found Radiolarian ooze only in a comparatively limited area in the Pacific and nowhere else, must we draw the conclusion that no such thing exists? We know that the vast majority of organic species have a limited distribution ”

“ As a public speaker he is quiet, deliberate, fluent, and, we might almost say, colloquial; while socially he is genial, witty, and brilliant. He is, moreover, a man of enlarged sympathies, in this respect contrasting markedly with many scientific men, who are swallowed up in their specialties, and never give a thought to any thing beyond them. Prof. Huxley has, however, overworked himself, and damaged his health. ”

“ In order clearly to distinguish from all other organisms made up of heterogeneous parts these simplest and most imperfect of all organisms, wherein neither the microscope nor chemical reagents can detect any differentiation of the homogeneous plasmic body, we give them, once for all, the name of Moneres, or simple organisms. Surely, if we would explain life ”

“ The gelatinous matter is therefore capable of a certain amount of movement, and there can be no doubt that it manifests the phenomena of a very simple form of life." My own researches on Bathybius-ooze had to do, like those of Huxley, only with dead substance in alcohol. ”

“ With these the eggs are simple naked cells, which, with the sponges especially, sometimes crawl about independently in the body of the animal, giving rise to the idea that they were a class of parasitic amoebae. But with other animals also, and with most plants, the eggs of which generally obtain subsequently special and often very complicated encasements and other additions, every egg is originally a simple cell. ”

“ With respect to living Bathybius, we have positive testimony as to its characteristic, Rhizopod-like movements from three competent observers, namely, Sir Wyville Thomson, Prof. William Carpenter, and Dr. Emil Bessels. All three made their observations on deep-sea ooze from the North Atlantic. On the other hand, the attempts made by members of the Challenger Expedition in various seas to repeat and confirm these earlier observations on the movement phenomena led only to negative results. ”

“ When a small infusorium or any other nutritive particle comes accidentally in contact with the extended pseudopodia, these run quickly over it like a fluid, wind around it with their numerous little branches, fuse into one, and press it into the interior of the body, where all the nutritive portions are rapidly absorbed and immediately assimilated, while all that is useless is quickly ejected. ”

“ With luminous clearness and convincing certainty, he has here established the fundamental law that, in every respect, the anatomical differences between man and the highest apes are of less value than those between the highest and the lowest apes. ”

“ When any point on the surface of the body is touched with the point of a pin, or with another body producing a chemical alteration, as for example a small drop of acid, or when a current of electricity is passed through it, the threads are drawn in, and the entire body contracts into the form of a spherical lump. ”

“ After Charles Darwin had, in 1859, reconstructed this most important biological theory, and, by his epoch-making theory of Natural Selection, placed it on an entirely new foundation, Huxley was the first who extended it to man ”

“ For this reason they are called false feet or pseudopodia. Nevertheless, by means of these pseudopodia the moners perform all the functions of the higher animals, moving them like real feet either to creep, climb, or swim. By means of these sticky threads they adhere to foreign bodies as with arms, and by shortening or elongating them they drag their own bodies after them. Each thread, like the whole body, is capable of being contracted, and every portion of it is as sensitive and excitable as the entire form. ”

“ Haeckel early accepted the views of Mr. Darwin, and has become their leading expositor in Germany. He has, besides, greatly extended and strengthened the theory of organic development by his own researches. ”

“ 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. ”