THE PRESENT POSITION OF CELL-THEORY. 305 



that the idea of a cell republic was inappropriate. Such 

 being the case I would willingly have buried the hatchet, 

 but when I had already dug the hole to bury it in, my hand 

 was stayed by some criticisms on his views and on mine 

 which have just been published in a contemporary periodi- 

 cal. 1 These criticisms have restored to me the conviction 

 which I held when I ventured to write a criticism of Mr. 

 Sedgwick's views ; a conviction that, as he originally 

 expressed them, they were calculated to mislead and to do 

 harm to the very cause whose interests he was desirous to 

 promote. As he has lately explained that he did not mean 

 what I supposed him to mean, there is no need for quarrel- 

 ling any further with him, but he will himself allow that I 

 was amply justified when I gave the following as a not 

 unfair statement of his position. That from the connection 

 known to exist between some cells composing adult tissues, 

 there is an antecedent probability that similar connections 

 exist between all cells composing all tissues ; and this 

 probability is heightened by observations made on the 

 development of Peripatus, by the fact that the so-called 

 mesenchyme cells in Avian and Selachian embryoes are 

 continuous and not isolated as was once supposed, and by 

 a study of the developing nerves of Elasmobranchs. And 

 that it follows from this that the morphological concept of a 

 cell so far from being of primary is altogether of secondary 

 importance, and that progress in the knowledge of structure 

 is impossible so long as men persistently regard cells as the 

 fundamental structural units on which the phenomena mani- 

 fested by organised beings depend. The true method of 

 inquiry must be a study of the growth, extension, vacuolation 

 and specialisation of the living substance protoplasm. 



He has been understood by others as I understood him, 

 and indeed he had so expressed himself that he could 

 scarcely have been understood otherwise. What I had 

 anticipated has happened. Persons, ready to grasp at 

 novel ideas, have said in their hearts : "Tush, there is no cell ! 

 There are protoplasmic masses which may contain one or 

 many nuclei ; the mass is of no importance, it is scarcely 



x Natural Science, vol. vii., No. 46, December, 1S95. 



