└────────────────────────────┴───────────────────────────────┘ IX MONERA The simplest forms of life--Cell theory and cell dogma--Precellular organisms: monera, cytodes, and cells--Actual monera--Chromacea (cyanophyceæ)--Chromatophora--Cœnobia of chromacea: vital phenomena--Bacteria--Relations of the bacteria to the chromacea, the fungi, and the protozoa--Rhizomonera (protamœba, protogenes, protomyxa, bathybius)--Problematic monera--Phytomonera (plasmodoma) and zoomonera (plasmophaga)--Transition between the two classes. In the study and explanation of all complex phenomena the first thing to do is to understand the simple parts, the manner of their combination, and the development of the compound from the simple. This principle applies generally to inorganic objects, such as minerals, artificially constructed machines, etc. It is also of general application in biological work. The efforts of comparative anatomy are directed to the comprehension of the intricate structure of the higher organisms from the rising scale of organization and life in the lower, and the origin of the former by historical development from the latter. The modern science of the cell (cytology), which has in a short time attained a considerable rank, pursues a method in opposition to this principle. The intricate composition of the unicellular organism, in many of the higher protists (such as the ciliata and infusoria) and many of the higher tissue-cells (such as the neurona) has led to the erroneous ascription of a highly complex organization to the cell in general. One would be justified in saying that of late the cell-theory has established itself in the dangerous and misleading position of a cell-dogma. The modern treatment of the science, as we find it in numbers of recent works, even in some of the most distinguished manuals, and which we must resent on account of its dogmatism, culminates in something like the following theses: 1. The nucleated cell is the general elementary organism; all living things are either unicellular, or made up of a number of cells and tissues. 2. This elementary organism consists of at least two different organs (or, more correctly, organella), the internal nucleus and the outer cell-body (or cytoplasm). 3. The matter in each of these cell-organs--the caryoplasm of the nucleus and the cytoplasm of the body--is never homogeneous (or consisting of a chemical substratum), but always "organized," or made up of several chemically and anatomically different elementary constituents. 4. The plasm (or protoplasm) is, therefore, a morphological, not a chemical, unity. 5. Every cell comes (and has come) only from a mother-cell, and every nucleus from a mother-nucleus (_omnis cellula e cellula--omnis nucleus e nucleo_).