INTRODUCTION 



IN the preface to the studies published by me in 1876, 

 upon the primary developmental processes of the ovum, cell 

 division, etc., I pointed out that the morphological method 

 of consideration, which had led to such brilliant results for 

 the comprehension of multicellular organisms, fails to be of 

 service to us when we attempt to penetrate deeper into 

 the essential nature of the elementary organism the cell. 

 I expressed the view " that the phenomena exhibited by and 

 in the elementary organism could not assume an intelligible 

 form except through a knowledge of the physical and 

 chemical conditions of their origin and cessation." I also 

 attempted in this work, and, as I believe, for the first time, 

 to bring into requisition a property of fluid bodies, namely, 

 surface tension, in order to explain the phenomena of the 

 division of the protoplasmic cell body, of which I had made 

 a careful study. 



In the following investigations I believe I am able 

 to bring forward a contribution towards a more accurate 

 physical explanation of certain peculiarities of living matter 

 or protoplasm. Since it is far from my intention to enter 

 at present into detailed historical disquisitions upon the 

 question of the structure and nature of protoplasm, I will 

 only put forward here a few historical remarks upon my 

 own position with regard to this question, in order to indi- 

 cate the train of reasoning which led to the investigations. 



In 1878 I found an opportunity for the first time 

 of expressing my opinion upon the alleged reticular struc- 

 ture of protoplasm, which had come more to the fore at 



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