266 SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT. 



had exhausted itself. The fundamental unity of the 

 organisation of living beings had been proved ; how was 

 their actual diversity to be explained ? This evidently 

 required considerations of a very different kind. What 

 they were we shall see in the next chapter. The posi- 

 tion of the morphologist in the middle of the century 

 had thus become one of considerable perplexity. 1 It may 

 be compared to that of the organic chemist about the 

 same time. The older ideas, around which, under the 

 great influence of Cuvier and De Candolle in zoology 

 and botany, of Werner and Humboldt in geology, the 

 morphological classification and description of natural 

 objects had clustered on the Continent, had become 

 obsolete. The doctrine of definite types, of architec- 

 tonic models, or of distinct ages of creation, separated 

 by catastrophic changes, was becoming untenable ; floras 

 and faunas of entirely different appearance had been 

 revealed in other countries and climates in the distant 

 past, 2 or in the great newly-discovered realm of living 



mental biology, and that of Virchow barriere bio-chimique e'tait moins 

 at the origin of modern pathology, rapproche'e que le ne croyaient lea 

 as the greatest practical application j disciples de Comte et de De 

 of the cellular theory. An exceed- ! Blainville " (Herrmann, article 

 ingly good record of the different ' "Cellule" in 'La Grande Ency- 

 and changing views referring to clopedie,' vol. ix. p. 1060). 

 the cell will be found in the chapter 2 Owen, in the very instructive 

 on "Cell and Protoplasm" in J. "General Conclusions" to the third 

 A. Thomson's ' Science of Life,' volume of the ' Anatomy of Verte- 

 pp. 101-117. brates' (1868), clearly points out 

 1 " On comprend aisement le how the position of Cuvier has 

 dccouragement de Robin renoncant been made untenable by these 

 a edifier son ' Trait^ d'Anatomie discoveries : " As my observations 

 generate,' apres avoir tente inutile- and comparisons accumulated, with 

 ment, dans sa ' Chimie anatomique,' paripassu tests of observed phenom- 

 de penetrer le me'canisme des ena of osteogeny, they enforced a 

 phenomenes mole'culaires s'accom- reconsideration of Cuvier's con- 

 plissant dans les corps organises, i elusions to which I had previously 

 La morphologie, pourtant, n'avait yielded assent" (p. 188). "Accord- 

 pas dit son dernier mot, et la ingly these results of extensive, 



