CHAPTER XII 



THE CLOSE OF THE PRE-EVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 







THE influence of the cell-theory on morphology was not 

 altogether happy. The cell-theory was from the first 

 physiological ; cells were looked upon as centres of force 

 rather than elements of form, and the explanation of all the 

 activities of the organism was sought in the action of these 

 separate dynamic centres. There resulted a certain loss of 

 feeling for the problems of form. The organism was seen no 

 longer as a cunningly constructed complex of organs, tissues 

 and cells ; it had become a mere cell-aggregate ; the higher 

 elements of form were disregarded and ignored. 



We have seen this physiological attitude expressed with 

 the utmost clearness by the founder of the cell-theory him- 

 self; we shall see the same attitude taken up by most of his 

 successors. Thus Vogt, who was later to become one of 

 the protagonists of materialism in Germany, developed in 

 his memoir on the embryology of Coregonus 1 the theory of 

 the independent or individual life of the cell. "Each cell," 

 he wrote, "represents in some measure a separate organism, 

 and while their development necessarily conforms to the 

 general plan and the particular tendencies of the parent 

 organism, they nevertheless each follow their own particular 

 tendency and do not lose their independence until, by reason 

 of the metamorphoses which they undergo, they lose their 

 cellular nature" (p. 275). 



And again, "... we are obliged to admit the existence 

 in the cell of an independent life, which makes its develop- 

 ment self-sufficient. . . . Each cell consequently represents 

 a little independent organism, which assimilates foreign sub- 

 stances, builds them up, and rejects those that are useless ; 



1 Rinbryologic (/,-s Sn///io>ies, 1842. 

 100 



