MORPHOLOGICAL UNITY OF LIVING BEINGS. l6l 



of the living being. A second period began in 

 1873 with the researches of Strassburger, Biitschh*, 

 Flemming, Kuppfer, Fromann, Heitzmann, Balbiani, 

 Guignard, Kunstler, etc. These observers in their 

 turn submitted this anatomical, this infinitely small 

 cellular microcosm, to the same penetrating dissection 

 their predecessors had applied to the whol-e organ- 

 ism. They brought us down one degree lower into 

 the abyss of the infinitely small. And as Pascal, 

 losing himself in these wonders of the imperceptible, 

 saw in the body of the mite which is only a point, 

 " parts incomparably smaller, legs with joints, veins in 

 the legs, blood in the veins, humours in the blood, 

 drops in the humours, vapours in these drops," so 

 contemporary biologists have shown in the epitome 

 of organism called a cell, an edifice which itself is 

 marvellously complex. 



TJie Cytoplasm. — The observers named above re- 

 vealed to us the extreme complexity of this organic 

 unit. Their researches have shown us the structure 

 of the two parts of which it is composed — the cellular 

 protoplasm and the nucleus. They have determined 

 the part played by each in genetic multiplication. 

 They have shown that the protoplasm which forms the 

 body of the cell is not homogeneous, as was at first 

 supposed. The idea which was mooted later, that 

 this protoplasm was formed, to use Sachs' words, of a 

 kind of " protoplasmic mud," — i.e., of a dust consisting 

 of grains and granules connected by a liquid, — is no 

 longer accurate. There is a much simpler view of the 

 case. According to Leydig and his pupils, we must 

 compare the protoplasm to a sponge in the meshes of 

 which is lodged a fluid, transparent, hyaline substance, 

 a kind of cellular juice, hyaloplasm. From the 



