SECTION III. 



REVIEW OF THE PREVIOUS RESEARCHES THE PORMATH l 



PROCESS OF CELLS THE CELL THEORY. 



The two foregoing sections of this work have been devoted 

 to a detailed investigation of the formation of the different 

 tissues from cells, to the mode in which these cells are de- 

 veloped, and to a comparison of the different cells with one 

 another. We must now lav aside detail, take a more e\- 

 tended view of these researches, and grasp the subject in its 

 more intimate relations. The principal object of our investi- 

 gation was to prove the accordance of the elementary parts of 

 animals with the cells of plants. But the expression " plant- 

 like life " (pnanzen-ahnliches Leben) is so ambiguous that 

 it is received as almost synonymous with growth without 

 vessels; and it was, therefore, explained at page 6 that in 

 order to prove this accordance, the elementary particles of 

 animals and plants must be shown to be products of the same 

 formative powers, because the phenomena attending their deve- 

 lopment are similar ; that all elementary particles of animals 

 and plants are formed upon a common principle. Having 

 traced the formation of the separate tissues, we can more 

 readily comprehend the object to be attained by this compa- 

 rison of the different elementary particles with one another, a 

 subject on which we must dwell a little, not only because it is 

 the fundamental idea of these researches, but because all 

 physiological deductions depend upon a correct apprehension 

 of this principle. 



When organic nature, animals and plants, is regarded as a 

 Whole, in contradistinction to the inorganic kingdom, we do 

 not find that all organisms and all their separate organs are 

 compact masses, but that they are composed of innumerable 

 small particles of a definite form. These elementary particles, 

 however, are subject to the most extraordinary diversity of 



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