These five theses of the modern cell-dogma are by no means sound; they are incompatible with the theory of evolution. I have, therefore, consistently resisted them for thirty-eight years, and consider them to be so dangerous that I will briefly give my reasons. First, let us clearly understand the modern definition of the cell. It is now generally defined (in accordance with the second thesis) as being composed of two essentially different parts, the nucleus and the cell-body, and it is added that these organella differ constantly both in respect of chemistry, morphology, and physiology. If that is really so, the cell cannot possibly be the primitive organism; if it were, we should have a miracle at the beginning of organic life on the earth. The theory of natural evolution clearly and distinctly demands that the cell (in this sense) is a secondary development from a simpler, primary, elementary organism, a homogeneous cytode. There are still living to-day very simple protists which do not tally with this definition, and which I designated _monera_ in 1866. As they must necessarily have preceded the real cells, they may also be called "precellular organisms." The earliest organisms to live on the earth, with which the wonderful drama of life began, can, in the present condition of biological science, only be conceived as homogeneous particles of plasm--biogens or groups of biogens, in which there was not yet the division of nucleus and cell-body which characterizes the real cell. I gave the name "cytodes" to these unnucleated cells in 1866, and joined them with the real nucleated cells under the general head of "plastids." I also endeavored to prove that such cytodes still exist in the form of independent monera, and in 1870 I described in my _Monograph on the Monera_ a number of protists which do not tally with the above definition.