12 



THE CELL AND PROTOPLASM 



that there are two ways to gain recognition, 

 either brag or fight. It seems to me that 

 Schleiden did both. 



It appears from many accounts that lie loved a 

 fight and it is certain that he had plenty of them. 

 Some of his observations and generalizations were 

 absurdly wrong and he was unsparing in his criti- 

 cisms of those who criticized them. For example, 

 in 1839 he proclaimed that the embryo plant forms 

 in the pollen tube which is therefore female and 

 that the ovule is really the male element. In his 

 textbook, Grundziige der wissenschaftliclien Bo- 

 tanilc, it is said that he was so vehement in his 

 criticisms and poured forth such a flood of botani- 

 cal satire and personal antipathies that the book 

 was considered libelous in France. (Matthias 

 Schleiden, Pop. Sci. Monthly, Dec, 1882.) 



Karl Miiller said of him : 



He has given us in his works a diversified mix- 

 ture of philosophical prepossessions, jejune obser- 

 vations and fanciful descriptions. Nevertheless, 

 despite his peculiar weaknesses, his followers recog- 

 nize him as a reformer in botany, and allot him a 

 permanent and eminent place in the history of that 

 science. 



Nevertheless it is still a mystery how it has 

 happened that he occupies so high a place 

 in the annals of science since his cell theory 

 had no great significance for botany; it 

 met with immediate and open opposition 

 by all those who had championed cell divi- 

 sion as the method of cell genesis, and espe- 

 cially by Meyen who, in 1839, stoutly main- 

 tained that cells arise by self -division. 



Julius von Sachs, in his celebrated His- 

 tory of Botany, says of Schleiden and his 

 work (p. 188) : 



Endowed with too great love of combat, and 

 armed with a pen regardless of the wounds it in- 

 flicted, ready to strike at any moment, and very 

 prone to exaggeration, Schleiden was just the man 

 needed in the state in which botany then was. His 

 first appearance on the scene was greeted with joy 

 by the most eminent among those who afterwards, 

 contributed to the real advance of the science, 

 though their paths it is true diverged considerably 

 at a later period, when the time of reconstruction 

 was come. If we were to estimate Schleiden 's 

 merit only by the facts which he discovered, we 

 should scarcely place him above the level of ordi- 

 narily good botanists ; we should have to reckon up 

 a list of good monographs, numerous refutations 

 of ancient errors and the like; the most important 

 of the theories which he proposed, and over which 

 vigorous war was waged among botanists during 

 many years, have long since been set aside. His 

 true historical importance has been already inti- 



mated; his great merit as a botanist is due not to ' 

 what he did as an original investigator, but to the 

 impulse he gave to investigation, to the aim and 

 object he set up for himself and others, and op- 

 posed in its greatness to the petty character of the 

 text-books. He smoothed the way for those who 

 could and would do great service. 



Again, after sketching the earlier work 

 on the cell theory, von Sachs says : 



Schleiden 's behavior was different. After hav- 

 ing somewhat hastily observed the free cell forma- 

 tion in the embryo sac of phanerogams in 1838, he 

 proceeded at once to frame a theory upon it which 

 was to apply to all cases of cell formation, and 

 especially to that in growing organs. The very 

 positive way in which he announced this theory and 

 set aside every objection which was made to it 

 combined with his great reputation at the time, at 

 once procured for it the consideration of botanists 

 generally, (p. 311.) 



Schleiden 's theory of cell formation arose out of 

 a curious mixing together of obscure observations 

 and preconceived opinions . . . did not rest on any 

 thorough course of observation, (p. 323.) 



We make acquaintance with Schleiden 's theory 

 of cell-formation in its original form, if we turn 

 to his treatise, ' ' Beitrage zur Phytogenesis ' ' 

 (1838). The work begins with some remarks on 

 the general and fundamental laws of human reason, 

 etc., discusses the literature of cell-formation in a 

 few lines without mentioning von Mohl's numerous 

 observation, goes on to mention the general occur- 

 rence of the nucleus . , . then occupies itself with 

 gum, sugar and starch, and at last comes to the 

 main subject, (p. 323.) 



Then follows his erroneous description of 

 new cell formation and the contradictions 

 which it aroused by Unger, von Mohl and 

 finally Niigeli. 



The first result was that Schleiden found 

 himself obliged to accept the cell-division 

 established by Nageli in algae and the 

 mother cells of pollen as a second kind of 

 cell- formation; thus began the movement in 

 retreat which, in 1846, ended with the over- 

 throw of Schleiden 's theory.^ 



3 Discussion of his erroneous theories raged for 

 twenty years and then they were abandoned and 

 forgotten. Schleiden, discouraged, withdrew from 

 botany and turned to anthropology for a brief 

 period and then to retirement where he wrote popu- 

 lar articles on the three kingdoms of nature, on 

 materialism in German philosophy, "The signifi- 

 cance of the Jews in the conservation and revival 

 of science in the middle Ages," and "The Ro- 

 mance of the Jewish Martyrology of the middle 

 Ages. ' ' He died in Frankfurt in isSl. (Pop. Sci. 

 Monthly, Dec, 1882.) 



