THEODOR SCHWANN 269 



from a fluid, but we have not therefore asserted the identity of the 

 fundamental powers. So far we have not advanced beyond the data, 

 beyond a certain simple mode of representing the facts. 



The question is, however, whether the exact accordance of the phe- 

 nomena would not authorize us to go further. If the formation and 

 growth of the elementary particles of organisms have nothing more in 

 common with crystallization than merely the deposition of solid sub- 

 stances from out of a fluid, there is certainly no reason for assuming 

 any more intimate connexion of the two processes. But we have seen, 

 first, that the laws which regulate the deposition of the molecules 

 forming the elementary particles of organisms are the same for all ele- 

 mentary parts ; that there is a common principle in the development of 

 all elementary parts, namely, that of the formation of cells ; it was then 

 shown that the power which induced the attachment of the new mole- 

 cules did not reside in the entire organism, but in the separated ele- 

 mentary particles (this we called the plastic power of the cells) ; lastly, 

 it was shown that the laws, according to which the new molecules com- 

 bine to form cells, are (so far as our incomplete knowledge of the laws 

 of crystallization admits of our anticipating their probability) the same 

 as those by which substances capable of imbibition would crystallize. 

 Now the cells do, in fact, consist only of material capable of imbibi- 

 tion ; should we not then be justified in putting forth the proposition, 

 that the formation of the elementary parts of organisms is nothing 

 but a crystallization of substance, capable of imbibition, and the or- 

 ganism nothing but an aggregate of such crystals capable of imbibi- 

 tion? 



To advance so important a point as absolutely true, would certainly 

 need the clearest proof ; but it cannot be said that even the premises 

 which have been set forth have in all points the requisite force. For 

 too little is still known of the cause of crystallization to predict with 

 safety (as was attempted above) what would follow if a substance 

 capable of imbibition were to crystallize. And if these premises were 

 allowed, there are two other points which must be proved in order to 

 establish the proposition in question : i. That the metabolic phenom- 

 ena of the cells, which have not been referred to in the foregoing argu- 

 ment, are as much the necessary consequence of the faculty of imbibi- 

 tion, or of some other pecuharity of the substance of cells, as the plas- 

 tic phenomena are. 2. That if a number of crystals capable of imbibi- 



