FIGURES 2.236 TO 2.237. Ascula of gastrophysema, attached to the floor of the sea. Figure 2.236 external view, 2.237 longitudinal section. g primitive gut, o primitive mouth, i visceral layer, e cutaneous layer. (Diagram.) FIGURE 2.238. Olynthus, a very rudimentary sponge. A piece cut away in front.) The lowest form of the Cnidaria is also not far removed from the gastraeads. In the interesting common fresh-water polyp (Hydra) the whole body is simply an oval tube with a double wall; only in this case the mouth has a crown of tentacles. Before these develop the hydra resembles an ascula (Figures 2.236 and 2.237). Afterwards there are slight histological differentiations in its ectoderm, though the entoderm remains a single stratum of cells. We find the first differentiation of epithelial and stinging cells, or of muscular and neural cells, in the thick ectoderm of the hydra. In all these rudimentary living coelenteria the sexual cells of both kinds--ova and sperm cells--are formed by the same individual; it is possible that the oldest gastraeads were hermaphroditic. It is clear from comparative anatomy that hermaphrodism--the combination of both kinds of sexual cells in one individual--is the earliest form of sexual differentiation; the separation of the sexes (gonochorism) was a much later phenomenon. The sexual cells originally proceeded from the edge of the primitive mouth of the gastraead. CHAPTER 2.20. OUR WORM-LIKE ANCESTORS. The gastraea theory has now convinced us that all the Metazoa or multicellular animals can be traced to a common stem-form, the Gastraea. In accordance with the biogenetic law, we find solid proof of this in the fact that the two-layered embryos of all the Metazoa can be reduced to a primitive common type, the gastrula. Just as the countless species of the Metazoa do actually develop in the individual from the simple embryonic form of the gastrula, so they have all descended in past time from the common stem-form of the Gastraea. In this fact, and the fact we have already established that the Gastraea has been evolved from the hollow vesicle of the one-layered Blastaea, and this again from the original unicellular stem-form, we have obtained a solid basis for our study of evolution. The clear path from the stem-cell to the gastrula represents the first section of our human stem-history (Chapters 1.8, 1.9, and 2.19).