360 COSMOS 



and diversity, or of poverty and uniformity in the contempla- 

 tion of the vegetable world. 



In this fragmentary sketch of the phenomena of organisa- 

 tion, I have ascended from the simplest cell* the first mani- 

 festation of life progressively to higher structures. " The 

 association of mucous granules constitutes a definitely-formed 

 cytoblast, around which a vesicular membrane forms a closed 

 cell," this cell being either produced from another pre-existing 

 cell,f or being due to a cellular formation, which, as in the 

 case of the fermentation-fungus, is concealed in the obscurity 

 of some unknown chemical process. But in a work like the 

 present we can venture on no more than an allusion to the 

 mysteries that involve the question of modes of origin the 

 geography of animal and vegetable organisms must limit 

 itself to the consideration of germs, already developed, of 

 their habitation and transplantation, either by voluntary or 

 involuntary migrations, their numerical relation, and their 

 distribution over the surface of the earth. 



The general picture of nature which I have endeavoured to 

 delineate, would be incomplete, if I did not venture to trace a 

 few of the most marked features of the human race, consi- 

 dered with reference to physical gradations to the geogra- 

 phical distribution of contemporaneous types to the influence 

 exercised upon man by the forces of nature, and the reciprocal, 

 although weaker, action which he in his turn exercises on 

 these natural forces. Dependent, although in a lesser degree 

 than plants and animals, on the soil, and on the meteorological 

 processes of the atmosphere with which he is surrounded 

 escaping more readily from the control of natural forces, by 

 activity of mind and the advance of intellectual cultivation, 

 no less than by his wonderful capacity of adapting himself to 



* Schleiden, Ueber die Entwicldungsweise der Pflanzenzellen, in 

 Muller's Archivfur Anatomie und Physiologic, 1838, s. 137-176; also 

 his Grundzuge der wissentschaftlichen Botanik, th. i. s. 191, and th. ii. 

 s. 11. Schwann, Mikroscopische Untersuchungen uber die Ueberein- 

 stimmung in der Struktur und dem Wachsthum der Thiere und Pftan- 

 zen, 1839, s. 45, 220. Compare also, on similar propagation, Job. Miiller, 

 Physiologie des Menschen, 1840, th. ii. s. 614. 



f Schleiden, Grundzuge der wissentscliaftlichen Botanik, 1842, th. i.. 

 s. 192-197. 



[On cellular formation, see Henfrey's Outlines of Structural and 

 Physiological Botany, op. cit. pp. 16-22.] Tr. 



