THE PRESENT POSITION OF THE CELL- 

 THEORY. 



PART II. 



SINCE I have shown that protoplasm in the simplest 

 form in which it is known to us may not be regarded 

 as having an organisation in the sense in which that term 

 has any meaning, and since it is a waste of time to discuss 

 the use of the term when it has no meaning, we may more 

 profitably turn to the question whether protoplasm has a 

 structure, and if so, what kind of structure? Is it essenti- 

 ally the same in all the kinds of protoplasm which have 

 been studied, and is it of the same kind as the structure of 

 tissues and organs of metazoa or is it of a different kind ? 

 For it must be insisted upon that one may deny to proto- 

 plasm an organisation, in the proper sense of the term, and 

 yet one may consistently attribute to it a structure, even a 

 very complex structure. But that structure need not be 

 called an organisation, to do so is to confuse two clear 

 issues. It is worth while to emphasise this point, for some 

 people think it very inconsistent to affirm that protoplasm 

 has a complex structure and at the same time to deny that 

 it is organised. 



I conceive that the view that protoplasm is composed of 

 granules, which are either biophors or secondary aggregates 

 of biophors, has been sufficiently refuted by Butschli's re- 

 searches on hyaline protoplasm already referred to. The 

 hyaline pseudopodia of Gromia show no trace of granules, 

 not because the granules are too small to be seen, for the 

 highest powers of the microscope reveal in the protoplasm, 

 at the moment of its protrusion to form a pseudopodium, a 

 structure which is not granular, namely, an alveolar structure, 

 and if granules were present they must necessarily be sought 

 for in the alveoli or in the alveolar walls. But they are to 

 be found in neither, so it may be affirmed that in the 

 simplest form of protoplasm there are no granules, a 



circumstance which deprives the theory of biophors of much 



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