BENNETTj ON THE MOLECULAR THEORY. 53 



assumes, it must constitute the principal foundation of orga- 

 nization itself. 



The author pointed out that it was not his object, in direct- 

 ing attention to a molecular theory of organization, to inter- 

 fere in any way with the well-observed facts on which physio- 

 logists have based what has been called the cell-theory of 

 growth. True, this last will require modification, in so far 

 as unknown processes of growth have been hypothetically 

 ascribed to the direct metamorphosis of cell-elements. But a 

 cell once formed may produce other cells by buds, by division, 

 or by proliferation, without a new act of generation, in the 

 same manner that many plants and animals do, and this fact 

 comprehends most of the admitted observations having refer- 

 ence to the cell doctrine. The molecular, therefore, is in no 

 way opposed to a true cell theory of growth, but constitutes 

 a wider generalisation and a broader basis for its operations. 

 Neither does it give any countenance to the doctrines of 

 equivocal or spontaneous generation. It is not a fortuitous 

 concourse of molecules that can g-ive rise to a plant or ani- 

 mal, but only such a molecular mass as descends from parents 

 and receives the appropriate stimulus to act in certain direc- 

 tions. 



In conclusion, the author remarked that the theory he had 

 endeavovired to establish on histological and physiological 

 grounds is fully supported by all the known facts of disease 

 and of morbid growths, which further serve to show that 

 pathology, so far from being cellular, is in truth molecular. 



