THE CELL-STATE. 183 



the moss to that of the oak-tree, an incredible number of cells come 

 together to form an ordered state ; the number of cells in a small 

 plant may be compared with the number of the inhabitants in the 

 most powerful kingdoms ; and I have estimated that at least ten mill- 

 ion cells live together in a potato five centimetres (about two inches) 

 in diameter, and that a pine-stem twenty-five metres (about eighty feet) 

 high and twenty-five centimetres (about one foot) in diameter, of sym- 

 metrical growth, contains more than a hundred milliard wood-cells. 



The leading idea that knits the plant-cells into a state-organism is 

 the same as in the bee-hive or the human state, the division of labor. 

 Each cell possesses its individual life and passes through its particular 

 course of development ; it, however, does not undertake all the works 

 of life, but limits the circle of its activities so as to reach a greater 

 perfection within a smaller limit. In this it works not for itself alone 

 but for the other cells also, while it commits to them those require- 

 ments for the satisfaction of which its individual activity is not suffi- 

 cient. Thus the different functions are so divided among the different 

 cells that one makes this, another that, occupation its own special busi- 

 ness. The cells of the cell-state so arrange themselves in their differ- 

 ent offices that they work mutually into each other's hands : one lives 

 for all, all for one. The more perfectly the division is carried out, the 

 more completely can each cell fulfill the duty for which it is designed ; 

 the more highly organized is the cell-state, and the higher position 

 does the whole plant take in the order of growths. 



As in the bee-hive there are working-bees, so in the cell-state of 

 the plant there are working-cells ; other cells are fitted for sexual 

 existence, like the drones and the queen in the bee-hive, so as to in- 

 sure the production of posterity and the foundation of a new stock. 



The cells which discharge the several functions in the plant are 

 not scattered confusedly in the mass, but are always grouped in greater 

 or smaller numbers of individuals precisely adapted for this or that 

 function, and together form a tissue. Plant-anatomists distinguish 

 three kinds of tissues, each of which discharges a particular function : 

 The fundamental tissue is composed of the cells which are the real 

 workers in the state ; the circulating tissue, of those cells on which the 

 duty of transportation is laid ; the bark-tissues, of those to which is 

 assigned the protection of the cell-state against the outer world. We 

 might designate as a fourth class the reproductive tissues, as including 

 the cells adapted to propagation, which are producing by continuous 

 divisions new colonies, new leaves and flowers, new buds and seeds. 



The cell-state is, to speak with Herbert Spencer, organized after 

 the type of an industrial state, in which numerous industrious work- 

 men are co-operating on a footing of democratic equality to ennoble 

 the raw material of lifeless nature and convert it into the precious and 

 diversified productions of life. The fundamental tissue in a measure 

 represents the working-class ; trade is represented in the cells of the 



