32O HOW TO WORK 



various modifications in the details, falls, if not into the very same 

 errors, at least into errors of a similar kind. 



We have seen that every real " cell " passes through certain 

 stages of being, and that no cell of any kind at an early period of 

 its formation exhibits those characters which entitle it to be called 

 a cell at all. The advocates of the physical theory altogether ignore 

 this important fact. Because they can make artificially things like 

 dead cells, they infer that living cells are produced in the same way, 

 forgetting that the characters of the advanced cell have only been 

 gradually acquired, and by a portion of matter which at first they 

 themselves would have said was not a cell at all. They forget that 

 the material out of which their cells have been made has the same 

 composition as the cells themselves, while the living cell is made out 

 of material of a composition totally distinct from it. They take 

 a little viscid substance composed of fatty and albuminous matter 

 and add with care a little water, and when they see under the micro- 

 scope globular masses separate, they cry, " See how simply cells are 

 made in nature out of similar ingredients to those which we operate 

 upon." But they ignore what is well known to every one, that out 

 of matter in which neither fat nor albumen, nor even any allied 

 substance can be detected, a minute mass of clear transparent living 

 germinal matter makes these and many other things. 



Any child could grasp the facts and arguments in connection with 

 this question if they were stated fairly, but it must be admitted that the 

 statements often made and the inferences drawn in many of our 

 elementary text books concerning cell formation are neither correct 

 nor just; and some of them, although utterly untenable, are repeated 

 over and over again with determined pertinacity. The fact that 

 many of the statements used in favour of the physico-chemical fancies 

 should be received at all, proves that most readers are content to 

 accept the conclusions of an author without studying or enquiring 

 into the facts upon which they are based ; and that no matter how 

 cogent the arguments against a particular doctrine may be, if these 

 be judiciously suppressed, while those which seem to be in its favour 

 are energetically and positively stated and sufficiently reiterated, the 

 doctrine will be forced into general favour, and may hold its position 

 perhaps for a long time. 



386. Of the Nutrition and Action of the Cell. It is generally 

 supposed that when a tissue grows, certain matters existing in the 

 blood pass from that fluid, undergo change, and are directly added 

 to the tissue. In the nutrition of such a tissue as cartilage, it 

 has been concluded that the matrix or intercellular substance is 

 deposited directly from the blood, and that the masses of germinal 



