276 Examination of the Matured Framework [Book 11. 



On the subject of the theory of cell-formation which he had 

 borrowed from Sprengel, he endeavoured to extricate himself 

 from his difficulty by ingeniously pointing out that though 

 the starch-grains in the seed-leaves of the bean disappear 

 without producing new cells in them, they are dissolved and 

 then serve as fluid material for new cell- formation in other 

 parts of the germinating plant, which however was giving up 

 Sprengel's theory ; yet he cited as a direct proof of that theory 

 the origination of gonidia in the cells of Hydrodictyon, and 

 their development into new nets. 



Mirbel and his German opponents moved for the most part 

 in a circle of ideas which had been formed by the speculations 

 of Malpighi, Grew, Hedwig and Wolff, though it must be 

 allowed that the observations of Treviranus did open new 

 points of view. But Johann Jakob Paul Moldenhawer 1 

 travelled far beyond these older views as early as 181 2 in his 

 important work, ' Beitrage zur Anatomie der Pflanzen.' He 

 took up from the first a more independent position as regards 

 former opinions than either of the writers hitherto considered. 

 He relied on very detailed, varied, and systematic observations 

 evidently made with a better instrument, abided by what he 

 himself saw, and chose his point of view in accordance with it, 

 while he criticised the views of his predecessors in detail with an 

 unmistakable superiority, and in so doing displayed minute 

 acquaintance with the literature of the subject and varied 

 phytotomical experience. He fixed his eye firmly on the 

 points in question, and made each one the subject of earnest 

 investigation and copious and perspicuous discussion. His 

 figures prove the carefulness of his examination and the greater 

 excellence of his instrument j they are undoubtedly the best 

 that were produced up to 181 2. His mode of dealing with 

 his subject and his figures, though they were not executed by 



1 Johann Jakob Paul Moldenhawer was Professor of Botany in Kiel ; he 

 was born at Hamburg in 1766, and died in 1S27. 



