138 THE MODE OF DEVELOPMENT 



noticeable features of the perfected spore, by their strong, brill- 

 iant, oil-like, refractive powers. This is the beginning of the 

 end, of the completion of the cycle of development ; already the 

 preparatory step has been taken for the partition of the granular 

 mass, by the self-division of its nucleus, and all that is required 

 to bring it to the perfect state, the one with which we started, is 

 a falling away of the vibratory cilia, (fig. 79, /,) the thickening 

 of the cell wall, (c,) the self-division into two of the granular 

 contents, (,) and then the development is perfected ; the off- 

 spring has become the image of the parent-plant (fig. 73). 



Here we have within this little space an eternal circle of the 

 incomings and outgoings of life; so simple in its manifestations, 

 and yet so intensely vital ; so determined toward a particular 

 end, that one, after the contemplation of these phenomena, in- 

 stinctively inquires, what chance is there now to comprehend the 

 physiological actions and reactions of the highest and most 

 complicated of those beings which manifest life ? This question 

 the physiological anatomist has held as a problem for the last 

 twenty-six years, dating back to the time when the botanist 

 Schleiden and the physiologist Schwan, in 1838, gave to the 

 world the results of their studies upon the growth of the cells 

 of plants and animals. Ever since that time, our ideas in regard 

 to the high complicity of the functions of life, among the 

 elevated classes of animals and plants, have been changing, and 

 verging toward a more simple philosophy. In short, life, in- 

 stead of being that long and often-represented entangled mesh 

 of complications and puzzling manifestations, stands now, in 

 the mind of the thoughtful, laboriously investigating physiolo- 

 gist, as a unity. Perhaps you can best realize this idea if I call 

 to mind the great simplicity in the administration of medi- 

 cine to the sick at the present day, as compared with the com- 

 plicated operations through which the human frame was com- 

 pelled to pass not many years ago. For this you may thank the 

 student who scarcely more than a quarter of a century since bent 

 patiently over his microscope from early rnorn till setting sun, 

 watching, with almost suspended breath, the little transparent 



