In thus declaring the action of bacteria to be purely chemical and analogous to that of well-known inorganic poisons, I would particularly point out that this very justifiable statement is a pure hypothesis; it is an excellent illustration of the fact that we cannot get on in the explanation of the most important natural phenomena without hypotheses. We can see nothing whatever of the chemical molecular structure of the plasm, even under the highest power of the microscope; it lies far below the limit of microscopic perception. Nevertheless, no expert scientist has the slightest doubt of its existence, or that the complicated movements of the sensitive atoms and the molecules and groups of molecules they make up are the causes of the vast changes which these tiny organisms effect in the tissues of the human and the higher animal body.
Moreover, the distinction of the many species of bacteria is of interest in connection with the general question of the nature and constancy of a species. Whereas formerly in biological classification only definite morphological characters, or definable differences in outer form or inner structure, were regarded as of any moment in the distinction of species, here, in view of the vagueness or total lack of these characters, we have to look mainly to the physiological properties, and these are based on the chemical differences in their hypothetical molecular structure. But even these are not absolutely constant; on the contrary, many bacteria lose their specific qualities by progressive culture under changed food-conditions. By a change in the temperature and the nutritive field in which a number of poisonous bacteria have been reared, or by the action of certain chemicals, not only the growth and multiplication are altered, but also the injurious effect they have on other organisms by the generation of poisons. This poisonous effect is weakened, and—what is most important—the weakening is transmitted by heredity to the following generations. On this is based the familiar process of inoculation, an admirable example of the inheritance of acquired characteristics.
As the bacteria are still often described as "cleavage-fungi" and classified along with the real fungi, we must particularly point out the wide gulf that separates the two groups. The real fungi (or mycetes) are metaphyta, their multicellular body (thallus) forming a very characteristic sort of tissue, the mycelium; this is composed of a number of interlaced and interwoven threads (or hyphens). Each fungus-thread consists of a row of lengthened cells, which have a thin membrane and enclose a number of small nuclei in the colorless plasm. Moreover, the two sub-classes of the real fungi, the ascomycetes and basimycetes, form peculiar fruit-bodies which generate spores (ascodia and basidia). There is no trace whatever of these real characteristics of the true fungus in the bacteria. Nor is it less incorrect to class them with the fungilli, the so-called unicellular fungi or phycomycetes (ovomycetes and zygomycetes); these form a special class of protists which has the closest affinity to the gregarinæ.
Like the closely related chromacea, many of the bacteria show a marked tendency to form communities or cell-colonies. These cell-communities arise, as elsewhere, from the fact that the individuals, which multiply rapidly by continuous cleavage, remain joined together. This may happen in two ways. When the social bacteria secrete large quantities of gelatine, and remain distributed in this, we have the zooglœa (as in the case of the aphanocapsa and glœocapsa among the chromacea). If, on the other hand, the long-bodied bacilli remain fastened together in rows, we get the knotted threads of leptothrix and beggiatoa (which may be compared with the oscillaria). And, if these threads go into branches, we have cladothrix. Other cœnobia of bacteria have the appearance of disks, the cytodes dividing in a plane, usually in groups of four (as in merismopedia), or of cube-shaped packets when they are in all three directions of space (sarcina).
The two classes of bacteria and chromacea seem, in the present condition of our knowledge, on account of their simple organization, to be the simplest of all living things, real monera, or organisms without organs. Hence we have to put them at the lowest stage of the protist kingdom, and must regard the difference between them and the most highly differentiated unicellular beings (such as the radiolaria, ciliated infusoria, diatomes, or siphonea) as no smaller than the difference (in the realm of the histona) between a lower polyp (hydra) and a vertebrate, or between a simple alga (ulva) and a palm. But if the kingdom of the protists is badly divided, on the older rule, into a plant kingdom and an animal kingdom, the only discriminating mark we have left is the difference in metabolism; in that case we have to include the plasmophagous bacteria in the animal kingdom (as Ehrenberg did in 1838) and the plasmodomous chromacea in the plant kingdom. The remarkable class of the flagellata, which includes ciliated unicellulars of both groups, contains several forms which are only distinguished from the typical bacterium by the possession of a nucleus. If it is true that in some of the protists which were counted as bacteria a real nucleus has been detected, these must be separated from the others (unnucleated) and included in the nucleated flagellata.
The monera which I described in 1866, and on which I based the theory of the monera in my monograph, belong to a different division of the protists from the classes of bacteria and chromacea. These are the forms which I described as protamœba, protogenes, protomyxa, etc. Their naked mobile plasma-bodies thrust out pseudopodia, or variable "false feet," from their surface, like the (nucleated) real rhizopods (=sarcodinæ); but they differ essentially from the latter in the absence of a nucleus. Afterwards (in my Systematic Phytogeny) I proposed to separate these unnucleated rhizopods from the others, giving the name of lobomonera (protamœba) to the amœba-like monera with flap-shaped feet, and the name of rhizomonera (protomyxa, pontomyxa, biomyxa, arachnula, etc.) to the gromia-like, root-feet forming monera. However, of late years, real nuclei have been detected in each of these large monera, and so they have been proved to be true cells. This discovery was made possible by the improved modern methods of coloring the nucleus which I had not the use of thirty years ago in my first observations. On the strength of these recent discoveries many scientists claim that all the monera I described are true cells, and must have nuclei. This baseless assertion is much employed by the opponents of the theory of evolution in order to deny the existence of the monera altogether.
Of the genus of monera which we call protamœba I have given an illustration in my History of Creation (tenth edition), which has been frequently reproduced. Several species (at least two or three) of this genus still exist, and are distinguished by the shape of their flap-formation and their method of motion. They resemble ordinary simple amœbæ, and only differ from these to any extent in the absence of a nucleus. The protamœba primitiva seems to be pretty widely distributed; it has been found repeatedly by observers (Gruber, Cienkowski, Leidy, etc.) in inland waters. In the zoological demonstrations which I have given at the University of Jena for forty years, and in the course of which the lowly inhabitants of our fresh water are regularly examined with the microscope, the protamœba primitiva has been found four or five times. It always had the same form, as I described it, moved about by the slow formation of flaps at its surface, multiplied by simple cleavage, and showed no trace of a nucleus in its homogeneous plasma-body even with the most careful application of the modern methods of tinting the nucleus. A larger number of very fine granules (microsoma) that were irregularly distributed in the plasm, and were more or less colored by nucleus-reagents, cannot be reckoned as clear equivalents of the nucleus in this or in similar cases; they are probably products of metabolism. The same may be said of the larger marine form of rhizomoneron, which A. Gruber has recently called pelomyxa pallida.
The large marine form of rhizomoneron to which Huxley gave the name of bathybius Haeckelii in 1868, and as to the real nature of which many opinions have been expressed, seems, according to the latest investigation, not to have the significance ascribed to it. However, the much-discussed question of the bathybius is superfluous as far as our monera theory and the associated hypothesis of archigony (chapter xv.) are concerned, since we have now a better knowledge of the much more important monera-forms of the chromacea and bacteria.
In the case of some of the protists I described in my Monograph on the Monera, it is at present doubtful whether their plasma-body contains a nucleus or not, and, therefore, whether they are to be classed as true cells or cytodes. This applies especially to the forms which only happened to come under observation once, such as protomyxa and myxastrum. In these obscure cases we must wait for fresh investigations and the application of the modern methods of tinting the nucleus. I may, however, point out, in passing, that these famous methods of nucleus-coloring give by no means the absolute certainty which is ascribed to them; there are other substances which take color in the same way as chromatin. As far as my monera theory is concerned, or the great general importance which I attach to these unnucleated living granules of plasm, it does not matter whether a nucleus is detected in these problematic monera or not. The chromacea alone—the most important of all monera—completely suffice to provide a base for the far-reaching theoretical conclusions which I draw from it.
At the close of these observations on the monera I will briefly recapitulate the weighty inferences which we can deduce from their simple organization. They serve as a solid foundation for the chief theses of our monistic biology; and they are inconsistent with the dualistic views of modern vitalists. In the first place, I emphasize the fact that the structureless plasm-body of the simple monera has no sort of organization and no composition from dissimilar parts co-operating for definite vital aims. Reinke's conscious "dominant"—as well as Weismann's mechanical "determinants"—have nothing to do here. The whole vital activity of the simplest monera, especially of the chromacea, is confined to their metabolism, and is therefore a purely chemical process, that may be compared to the catalysis of inorganic compounds. The simple formation of individuals in this primitive living matter is merely a question of the cleavage of plasma globules of a certain size (chroococcus); and their primitive multiplication (by simple self-division) is only a continued growth (analogous to that of the crystal). When this simple growth passes a certain limit, that is fixed by the chemical constitution, it leads to the independent existence of the redundant growth-products.