ON THE V1TALISTIC VIEW OF NATURE. 



423 



and in no sense determining their initial develop- 

 ment." l 



It seems, then, that we can date back to Schwann's 

 ' Researches ' the origin of two distinct courses of Thought 

 which in the second half of our century obtain in 

 biological science. The first we may call the morpho- 

 logical or structural school of biology. It is based on 

 the theory of the cell or some modified conception, and 

 attempts to explain the fundamental processes which 

 go on in living organisms from the structure of the 

 elementary parts. As the most minute particles of 



34. 



Structural 

 analysis of 

 morpho- 

 logical 

 elements. 



1 See Sir Michael Foster's excel- 

 lent article on " General Physiology " 

 in the 19th vol. of the ' Ency. Brit.,' 

 9th ed., p. 12. In this connection 

 a passage from an early review of 

 Huxley's, "On the 'Cell Theory," 

 has been frequently quoted, ac- 

 cording to which cells may be 

 " no more the producers of the 

 vital phenomena than the shells 

 scattered in orderly lines along the 

 sea beach are the instruments by 

 which the gravitative force of the 

 moon acts upon the ocean. Like 

 these the cells mark only where the 

 vital tides have been and bow they 

 have acted" (1853, in the 'Brit, 

 and For. Med. Chirurg. Review,' 

 reprinted in the first volume of 

 'Scientific Memoirs,' p. 277). Ac- 

 cording to this view, which has 

 been further developed in more 

 recent times, the cells would be 

 " indications," not instruments, of 

 the vital phenomena, which "are not 

 necessarily preceded by organisa- 

 tion, nor are in any way the result 

 or effect of formed parts, the 

 faculty of manifesting them re- 

 siding in the matter of which living 

 bodies are composed, as such or, 

 to use the language of the day, 

 the ' vital forces ' are molecular 



forces." It is interesting to quote 

 together with this passage from 

 Huxley, what was said forty years 

 later by an eminent living physio- 

 logist, Prof. Max Verworn of Jena : 

 " The fact has been established that 

 a fundamental contrast between 

 living organisms and inorganic 

 bodies does not exist. In contra- 

 distinction to all inorganic nature, 

 however, organisms are character- 

 ised solely by the possession of 

 certain highly complex chemical 

 compounds, especially proteids " 

 ('General Physiology,' transl. by 

 F. S. Lee, 1899, p. 126). "We 

 can summarise our considerations 

 and give simple expression to the 

 problem of all physiology. The life- 

 process consists in the metabolism 

 of proteids. If this be true, all 

 physiological research is an experi- 

 ment in this field : it consists in 

 following the metabolism of proteids 

 into its details, and recognising the 

 various vital phenomena as an ex- 

 pression of this metabolism which 

 must result from it with the same 

 inevitable necessity as the pheno- 

 mena of inorganic nature result 

 from the chemical and physical 

 changes of inorganic bodies" (ibid., 

 p. 136). 



