Chapter Eight 



Why Was This Theory of 

 Life Not Stated Before? 



THE theory offers a solution that seems so simple 

 and obvious that the only wonder of it is that 

 it was not stated before. However, many of the facts 

 on which it is based, and without which it could not 

 be formulated, have been brought to light only 

 recently. Biology itself is a very young science, and 

 atomic physics is still younger. 



Modern biology may be said to date from the dis- 

 covery of the cell. (Von Mohl, Schleiden and 

 Schwann.) It was in 1839 that Schwann discovered 

 that the human ovum is a cell, and recognized that 

 animals and plants are built up of cells. And as a 

 writer pointed out on the occasion of the centenary 

 of Schwann's birth (Dec. 7, 1910), "the first years 

 of Schwann's scientific activities fell within those 

 happy days when it was still possible, in the words of 

 Henle, *by scraping with the blade of a scalpel or 

 with the fingernail over an animal membrane, to 

 make fundamental discoveries.' " 



Following the revolution of all former conceptions 



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