DISINTEGRATION 193 



these organs and the cells which compose them there is no 

 direct and necessary relation (p. 6). It is true that the cell 

 is the ultimate element of organic form, and that all develop- 

 ment takes place by multiplication and form-change of cells. 

 Yet is the cell in all this not independent of the unity of 

 the developing embryo, and what the cells produce, they 

 produce, so to speak, not of their own free will, nor by chance, 

 but under the guiding influence of the unity of the whole, and 

 in a certain measure as its agents (p. 7). The atomists will 

 not admit the truth of this ; they see in development nothing 

 more than a process of the form-change and multiplication 

 of cells. The full meaning of development escapes them, for 

 they take no cognisance of the increasing complexity of the 

 embryo, of the separating-out of tissues, of the moulding of 

 organs, of the harmonious adaptation and adjustment of the 

 parts to form a working whole. 



In general, the fault of the atomists is that they do not 

 respect the limits which Nature herself has prescribed to 

 the process of logical analysis and disintegration of the 

 organism ; they do not recognise the existence of natural 

 and rational units or unities ; they forget the one great 

 principle of rational analysis, " that, by universally valid, 

 inductive, logical method, natural objects must in all cases 

 be accepted and dealt with in the combination and con- 

 catenation in which they are given" (p. 10). 



The atomists at least recognised one natural organic 

 element, the cell ; the materialistic physiologists of the time 

 resolved even this unity into an aggregate of inorganic 

 compounds, and regarded the organism itself as nothing but 

 a vastly complicated physico-chemical mechanism. From 

 this point of view morphology had no right of existence, and i 

 we find Ludwig, one of the foremost of the materialistic 

 school, maintaining that morphology was of no scientific 

 importance, that it was nothing more than an artistic game, 

 interesting enough, but completely superseded and robbed of 

 all value by the advance of materialistic physiology. 1 



Naturally enough, morphologists did not accept this 

 rather contemptuous estimate of their science, but held 



1 See Leuckart's reply to Lud wig's criticism, in Zcit. f. wiss. ZooL. ii., 

 p. 271, 1850. 



