IV YEAST 129 



whatever their ultimate complication, begin their 

 existence in the condition of such simple cells. 



In his famous "Mikroskopische Untersuchun- 

 gen " Schwann speaks of Torula as a " cell " ; and, 

 in a remarkable note to the passage in which he 

 refers to the yeast plant, Schwann says : 



"I have been unable to avoid mentioning fermentation, 

 because it is the most fully and exactly known operation of cells, 

 and represents, in the simplest fashion, the process which is 

 repeated by every cell of the living body." 



In other words, Schwann conceives that every 

 cell of the living body exerts an influence on the 

 matter which surrounds and permeates it, ana- 

 logous to that which a Torula exerts on the 

 saccharine solution by which it is bathed. A 

 wonderfully suggestive thought, opening up views 

 of the nature of the chemical processes of the 

 living body, which have hardly yet received all 

 the development of which they are capable. 



Kant defined the special peculiarity of the living 

 body to be that the parts exist for the sake of the 

 whole and the whole for the sake of the parts. 

 But when Turpin and Schwann resolved the living 

 body into an aggregation of quasi-independent 

 cells, each, like a Torula, leading its own life and 

 having its own laws of growth and development, 

 the aggregation being dominated and kept work- 

 ing towards a definite end only by a certain 

 harmony among these units, or by the superaddition 



195 



