CHAPTER VI 



CHEMICAL CHARACTERS OF CELL 



Crystallisation Bye-products of Cell Movement Irri- 

 tability or Tactism 



THE comparison between living bodies and a 

 machine will form the subject of another 

 chapter, but having proceeded as far as we have 

 in the study of the cell it may be wise to pause 

 for a short time and consider in how far the 

 facts narrated in the previous chapters tally 

 with the conditions obtaining in inanimate 

 nature and how far the two categories are at 

 variance with one another. 



In the first place it may safely be said that Chemistry 

 the chemical constitution of living matter, as * livin S 

 far as we know it, does not in any wayjielp 

 us to understand its possibilities. As we have 

 s( en, we gain an idea of enormous complexity 

 of composition, but that complexity does not 

 begin to be an explanation of the wonderful 

 powers of living matter. There are other highly 

 complicated organic compounds but they do 

 not display any beginning of vital powers nor 



75 



