CHAPTER VI 



SOME PROBLEMS OF CELL-ORGANIZATION 



"Wir miissen deshalb den lebenden Zellen, abgesehen von der Molecularstructur der 

 organischen Verbindungen, welche sie enthalt, noch eine andere und in anderer Weise com- 

 plicirte Structur zuschreiben, und diese es 1st, welche wir mit dem Namen Organization 

 bezeichnen." BRticKE. 1 



"Was diese Zelle eigentlich ist, dariiber existieren sehr verschiedene Ansichten." 



HA'CKEL. 2 



The remarkable history of the chromatic substance in the matura- 

 tion of the germ-cells forces upon our attention the problem of the 

 ultimate morphological organization of the nucleus, and this in its 

 turn involves our whole conception of protoplasm and the cell. The 

 grosser and more obvious organization is revealed to us by the micro- 

 scope as a differentiation of its substance into nucleus, cytoplasm, and 

 centrosome. But, as Strasburger has well said, it would indeed be a 

 strange accident if the highest powers of our present microscopes had 

 laid bare the ultimate organization of the cell. Briicke insisted more 

 than thirty years ago that protoplasm must possess a far rnore com- 

 plicated morphological organization than is revealed to us in the 

 visible structure of the cell, and suggested the possible existence of 

 vital units ranking between the molecule and the cell. Many biologi- 

 cal thinkers since Briicke's time have in one form or other accepted 

 this conception, which indeed lies at the root of nearly all recent 

 attempts to analyze exhaustively the phenomena of cell-life. I shall 

 make no attempt to review the a priori arguments that have been 

 urged in favour of this conception, 3 but will rather inquire what 

 are the extreme conclusions justified by the known facts of cell- 

 structure. 



1 Elementarorganismen, 1861, p. 386. 



2 Anthropogenic, 1891, p. 104. 



3 For an exhaustive review of the subject see Yves Delage, La Structure <lti protoplasma, 

 ct les theories sur Fheredite. Paris, 1895. 



2IO 



