330 LECTURE XIV. 



titative rather than qualitative. At any rate, the fact that the animal 

 cells convert carbohydrates into fat indicates that they possess the same 

 functions as do the plant cells. The transformation, whether it be from 

 fat or from albumin into carbohydrate, is a very complicated process, and 

 it is safe to assume that the animal cell is far more efficient than we have 

 hitherto imagined. We shall have to take such relations more into 

 account and synthetic processes will receive more attention in the future. 

 It is only by reason of far-reaching changes, through disintegrations and 

 reconstruction, that we are able to understand why every species of animal, 

 in fact, every individual, should possess a specific composition in spite of 

 the fact that each may have had the same food. 1 This alone is sufficient 

 to warrant us in assuming complicated synthetic processes as taking place 

 in the animal cell. 



Cf . Lecture XXIX. 



