Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1903-06-06
nourishment could be given to them con-
stantly.
An ORIGINAL Animal

nourfshment could De gwen TO them con-
stantly.
An Original Animal.
Now, suppose a person who knows moth
ing at all of cells and cell communities
were to capture such cup-formed mass.
What sort of an animal would he imagine
1t to be?
1t would be clear to him that he had be-
fore him a very simple constructed crea-
ture, which possesses only two organs. On
the outside is a. skin, clothed, after the
manner of many animals, with fine points
hairs. The animal swims in a straight line.
propelled by the flmmering impulse of
these hairs.
Inside the animal has a stomach with
which 1t eats and digests. This combina
tion or only two organs-stomach and skin
gives the thing primitive appearance.
One perceives that it stands low in the
scale of animal development. But, at any
rate, 1t has organs-most important
stomach So the beholder would say, Yes;
it is real animal And he would be right.
But we, knowing of cell growth, have
learned how the animal became an ami
NAL We have learned how it achieved
stomach
What 1 have explained simply and with
out scientific terms is the ground principle
of the famous theory of the gastraea.
1t was first formulated sharply and de-
cisively by Ernst Haeckel. Springing from
the Greek word Caster (the stomach. 1t
describes that cup-shaped animal form
whose genesis the reader has beheld.
The "arch-stomach animal we might
call 1t in plain English
Haeckel furnished proof that such crea-
ture, with primitive division of labor into
skin and stomach, must indeed have been
the arch and root form of the whole higher
animal world in, the gray days of world
evolution.
The formation of primitive beings into
cell communities, cell clumps or cell blad-
ders occurred repeatedly in the beginning
of life. Such cell clumps then developed in
two wholly different directions-some in the
direction of the many-celied true plant. the
others in the direction of the many-celled
true animal
The characteristics of Animals.
The plant shows no stomach in the sense
of the stomach of the animal. Even though
some higher plants-the so-called insectivo
rous plants-produce juices like the gastric
juices and digest" captured insects, the
process has nothing in common with genu-
inc stomach and intestinal formation. But
in all animals-with the exception of only
a very few degenerated parastes-the
stomach is the most characteristic organ,
and one that is developed even where the
nervous system still is lacking
So the beginning of the stomach, the ap-
pearance in the world of the arch-stomach
animal or gaStraea, is the great vital mo-
ment in the life history of the higher ami
mails.
In the family tree of these higher ami
mails, as Haeckel has worked it out, the
Eastraea forms the point of departure for
all ramifications, all upward development.
Two main branches go out from 1t in the
beginning, working out by two different
methods, the mode of life of the cell-cup.
In one branch the living cup gave up its
swimming life and fastened itself to the
ocean bottom with it's lower, closed side,
thus becoming the ancestor of the animal
sponges and the polyps. In the other
branch it continued to swim or crawl
straight ahead and thus gradually extend
itself laterally. This led finally to a SYM
metrical development of both ends. An
opening appeared at the end opposite the
cup or mouth.
With that opening the cup-creature be-
came tube. The intestine had formed.
The creature was a worm.
The worm, in turn became the prmor-
dial ancestor of the highest animals-the
soft creatures, such as mollusks; the prickle
Skins such as sea stars: the artfcula ted
animals, such as crabs, spiders, insects; and
the vertebra tes
And the vertebrate, that began with the
fish, ended in the mammal with man.
Living Relatives Of the First Stomach.
The true, primitive gastraea has not been
discovered yet. But there are many living
forms that stand so near the gastraea that
Haeckel himself has felt justified in naming
them "gastraedas,'' and in a recent work
1t has been possible to publish plate with
no less than sixteen figures of such crea-
lures.
Our fresh water polyp belongs to this
group. 1t exists today practically with
nothing except skin and stomach, although
it has advanced to the stationary form of
life. Then there are certain low sponge-like
forms of animal.
Jean Paul once said very admirably that
he hepinS where q m discovers that
everything that is old and of Everyday
is really wonderful In this sense, every
thinking person should be a poet.
/ hope that the reader who has made this
little expedition into the mystery of life
will be conscious that there is nothing
trivial in the light of knowledge. The
stomach. in the gastraea theory, becomes
life.
AIIIII d LEI u INR DIP ITIcH p MY