640 WHITMAN. [Vol. \' 1 1 1 . 



elementary parts, not differing from the others, are capable of 

 separatijig thevtselves froju the organism, and pursuing an 

 independent growth, we may thence conclude that each of the 

 other elementary parts, each cell, is already possessed of power 

 to take up fresh molecules and grow ; and that, therefore, 

 every elementary part possesses a pozver of its own, an inde- 

 pendent life, by means of whicJi it would be enabled to develop 

 independently, if the relations which it bore to external 



PARTS were but similar TO THOSE IN WHICH IT STANDS IN 



THE ORGANISM. The ova of animals afford us examples of 

 such independent cells, growing apart from the organism." 

 {I.e. p. 192). 



In these words of Schleiden and Schwann we see no vague 

 anticipation, but a clear statement, of the cell-standpoint of 

 to-day. The organism consists, morphologically, of cells, and 

 subsists, physiologically, by means of the "reciprocal action" 

 of the cells. Organization means cellular structure, and 

 ontogeny means cell-formation. '^ Der gleiche Elementaiviganis- 

 tmis ist es, der Thiere tmd Pflanzen zusammensetst." (Schwann.) 



In this "double life," this "harmonious whole," this "recip- 

 rocal action" of "elementary organisms," this "operating 

 together in an unknown manner," we see the "cell-state" 

 theory, the "unknown principle of correlation," the "correlative 

 differentiation," the "cellular interaction " of current literature. 



Much as we have enlarged our knowledge of the cell, we 

 are still looking at the problems of life from the point of 

 view occupied by the founder of the cell-doctrine. The most 

 notable advances in cytology have but tended to define and 

 emphasize the cell-standpoint. The discovery that all cells 

 arise by division of preexisting cells, neatly embodied in Vir- 

 chow's maxim, ^^ omnis cellula e cellnla" ; the extension and 

 verification of this maxim furnished by Gegenbaur in 1861, 

 in demonstrating the vertebrate egg to be a single cell ; and the 

 proof obtained during the last twenty years that the internal 

 processes of cell-division are fundamentally the sa^ne in both 

 plafits and animals, — all these capital steps forward have 

 tended to magnify the importance of the cell as a universal 

 unit of structure. 



