82 VITALISM AND SCHOLASTICISM 



infinitum. But the living cell once destroyed 

 cannot be reformed, another fundamental 

 difference between the two.* 



Bye- The question of bye-products is one which 



products j ias | 3een a j rea( jy touched upon more than 



once; and what a remarkable series of bye- 

 products there are when one contemplates the 

 vegetable world alone ! There are the numer- 

 ous alkaloids and essential oils which are so 

 much used in medicine and in the arts, the 

 essences with which perfumes are made, waxes, 

 turpentines and a whole host of other com- 

 pounds all constructed by the cell in its own 

 laboratory and out of the comparatively few 

 elements, for the greater part four or five only, 

 with which it works. 



Yet all the time that the cell is doing this, all 

 the time that it is breaking up and rebuilding 

 its own substance, whilst it is concocting in 

 its internal manufactory the bye-products of 

 which we are speaking, all this time the cell 

 remains unaltered or unaltered save in im- 

 material characteristics. It is the same cell, 



* For a full examination of the question of the growth 

 of living things and of crystals see Johnstone, Philosophy 

 of Biology, pp. 168 seq. "It is inexplicable to me " (says 

 de Quatrefages (Les Emules de Darwin, ii., 63; teste 

 Gerard, Old Riddle, p. 64), " that some men whose merits 

 I otherwise acknowledge, should have compared crystals to 

 the simplest living forms. . . . These forms are the antipodes 

 of the crystal from every point of view.'* 



