IV] STRUCTURE OF THE CELL 159 



And lacking, as we still do lack, direct knowledge of the actual 

 forces inherent in the cell, we may yet learn something of their 

 distribution, if not also of their nature, from the outward and 

 inward configuration of the cell, and from the changes taking 

 place in this configuration ; that is to say from the movements 

 of matter, the kinetic phenomena, which the forces in action set up. 



The fact that the germ-cell develops into a very complex 

 structure, is no absolute proof that the cell itself is structurally 

 a very comphcated mechanism : nor yet, though this is somewhat 

 less obvious, is it sufficient to prove that the forces at work, or 

 latent, within it are especially numerous and complex. If we blow 

 into a bowl of soapsuds and raise a great mass of many-hued and 

 variously shaped bubbles, if we explode a rocket and watch the 

 regular and beautifiil configuration of its falUng streamers, if we 

 consider the wonders of a limestone cavern which a filtering stream 

 has filled with stalactites, we soon perceive that in all these cases 

 we have begun with an initial system of very slight complexity, 

 whose structure in no way foreshadowed the result, and whose 

 comparatively simple intrinsic forces only play their part by 

 complex interaction with the equally simple forces of the surround- 

 ing medium. In an earlier age, men sought for the visible embryo, 

 even for the homunculus, within the reproductive cells ; and to 

 this day, we scrutinize these cells for visible structure, unable to 

 free ourselves from that old doctrine of "pre-formation*." 



Moreover, the microscope seemed to substantiate the idea 

 (which we may trace back to Leibniz | and to HobbesJ), that 

 there is no limit to the mechanical complexity which we may 

 postulate in an organism, and no limit, therefore, to the hypo- 

 theses which we may rest thereon. 



But no microscopical examination of a stick of sealing-wax, 

 no study of the material of which it is composed, can enlighten 



* As when Nageli concluded that the organism is, in a certain sense, "vorge- 

 bildet" ; Beitr. zur iviss. Botanik, II, 1860. Cf. E. B. Wilson, The Cell, etc., p. 302. 



t "La matiere arrangee par une sagesse divine doit etre essentieUement organisee 

 partout...il y a machine dans les parties de la machine Naturelle a I'infini." Sur le 

 qirincipe de la Vie, p. 431 (Erdmann). This is the very converse of the doctrine 

 of the Atomists, who could not conceive a condition "w6i dimidiae jjartis pars 

 ■semper habebit Dimidiam partem, nee res praefiniet ulla.''' 



1 Cf. an interesting passage from the Elements (i, p. 445, Molesworth's edit.), 

 quoted by Owen, Hunterian Lectures on the Invertebrates, 2nd ed. pp. 40, 41, 1855. 



