274 Dv Alison on the Principle of Vital Affinity. 



it, likewise, the matter which is contained within them, — i. e., 

 in the organs of secretion, the secreted fluids, and in the dif- 

 ferent solid textures, that additional matter which is always 

 found, whether lignin, oil or fat, fibrinous, cartilaginous, or 

 bony substance, in a granular or less definite form, incrusting 

 the walls of the cells. It does not appear possible to explain 

 what is distinctly seen in all these cases, without supposing 

 that the pre-existing cells exert a peculiar attraction or affi- 

 nity, both for the matter by which they are themselves to be 

 nourished, and their successors to be reproduced, — and like- 

 wise for another matter, different in the different parts of the 

 structure, by which they are to be filled or distended. And 

 in the case of vegetables, there seems to be this general dis- 

 tinction between the two, — that the former is a matter desti- 

 tute of azote, and the latter one containing that element. 



3. The cell, growing always by attracting to itself a com- 

 pound matter, existing in the fluid state, and giving it a simple 

 increase of aggregation, the nature of the change which takes 

 place as this matter becomes solid, is simply consolidation, 

 not precipitation, just as the fibrin of the blood, differing from 

 the albumen only in its stronger (vital) tendency to aggrega- 

 tion, is consolidated in its compound form from the liquor 

 sanguinis in the act of coagulation. And thus it happens 

 that these organic solids possess (as was particularly noticed 

 by Dr Prout) that peculiarity which, in the inorganic world, 

 is observed only in fluids, that even the minutest portion of 

 them contains the very same ingredients (whether earthy or 

 saline, animal or vegetable matters) as is found in the whole 

 mass. 



The absence of all crystalline arrangement, and the com- 

 plex nature even of the smallest particle of an organized body, 

 are the characteristics of matter which has assumed the solid 

 from the fluid form, — not by a chemical precipitation, or sepa- 

 ration from matter formerly united to it, but by a vital attrac- 

 tion, subjecting it to " the invisible cause by which the forms 

 of organs are produced." 



4. In the next place, we may inquire what difference ex- 

 ists among the cells in different parts of the same structure, 

 to explain the great difference of the compounds which are 



