212 THEORY OF THE CELLS. 



bodies capable of imbibition could be brought to crystallize. 

 So long as the object of such a comparison were merely to 

 render the representation of the process by which cells are 

 formed more clear, there could not be much urged against it ; 

 it involves nothing hypothetical, since it contains no explana- 

 tion ; no assertion is made that the fundamental power of the 

 cells really has something in common with the power by which 

 crystals are formed. We have, indeed, compared the growth 

 of organisms with crystallization, in so far as in both cases 

 solid substances are deposited from a fluid, but we have not 

 therefore asserted the identity of the fundamental powers. So 

 far we have not advanced beyond the data, beyond a certain 

 simple mode of representing the facts. 



The question is, however, whether the exact accordance of 

 the phenomena would not authorize us to go further. If the 

 formation and growth of the elementary particles of organisms 

 have nothing more in common with crystallization than merely 

 the deposition of solid substances from out of a fluid, there is 

 certainly no reason for assuming any more intimate connexion 

 of the two processes. But we have seen, first, that the laws 

 which regulate the deposition of the molecules forming the 

 elementary particles of organisms are the same for all ele- 

 mentary parts ; that there is a common principle in the deve- 

 lopment of all elementary parts, namely, that of the formation 

 of cells ; it was then shown that the power which induced the 

 attachment of the new molecules did not reside in the entire 

 organism, but in the separate elementary particles (this we 

 called the plastic power of the cells); lastly, it was shown that 

 the laws, according to which the new molecules combine to 

 form cells, are (so far as our incomplete knowledge of the laws 

 of crystallization admits of our anticipating their probability) 

 the same as those by which substances capable of imbibition 

 would crystallize. Now the cells do, in fact, consist only of 

 material capable of imbibition; should we not then be justi- 

 fied in putting forth the proposition, that the formation of the 

 elementary parts of organisms is nothing but a crystallization 

 of substance capable of imbibition, and the organism nothing 

 but an aggregate of such crystals capable of imbibition ? 



To advance so important a point as absolutely true, would 

 certainly need the clearest proof; but it cannot be said that 



