THEORY OF THE CELLS. 213 



even the premises which have been set fort li have in all [joints 



the requisite force. For too little is still known of the cause 

 of crystallization to predict with safety (as was attempted above) 

 what would follow if a substance capable of Imbibition were to 



crystallize. And if these premises were allowed, there are two 

 other points which must be proved in order to establish tin- 

 proposition in question: 1. That the metabolic phenomena of 

 the cells, which have not been referred to in the foregoing 

 argument, are as much the necessary consequence of the faculty 

 of imbibition, or of some other peculiarity of the substance of 

 cells, as the plastic phenomena are. 2. That if a number of 

 crystals capable of imbibition are formed, they must combine 

 according to certain laws so as to form a systematic whole, 

 similar to an organism. Both these points must be clearly 

 proved, in order to establish the truth of the foregoing view. 

 But it is otherwise if this view be adduced merel as an hypo- 

 thesis, which may serve as a guide for new investigations. In 

 such case the inferences are sufficiently probable to justify 

 such an hypothesis, if only the two points just mentioned can 

 be shown to accord with it. 



With reference to the first of these points, it would certainly 

 be impossible, in our ignorance as to the cause of chemical 

 phenomena in general, to prove that a crystal capable of im- 

 bibition must produce chemical changes in substances sur- 

 rounding it; but then we could not infer, from the manner 

 in which spongy platinum is formed, that it would act so 

 peculiarly upon oxygen and hydrogen. But in order to 

 render this view tenable as a possible hypothesis, it is only 

 necessary to see that it may be a consequence. It cannot be 

 denied that it may : there are several reasons for it, though 

 they certainly are but weak. For instance, since all cells 

 possess this metabolic power, it is more likely to depend on a 

 certain position of the molecules, which in all probability is 

 essentially the same in all cells, than on the chemical com- 

 bination of the molecules, which is very different in different 

 cells. The presence, too, of different substance's on the Inner 

 and the outer surface of the cell-membrane (see above, pa. 

 109) in some measure implies that a certain direction of the 

 axes of the atoms may be essential to tin' metabolic pheno- 

 mena of the cells. I think, therefore, that the cause of the 



