266 



SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT. 



had exhausted itself. The fundamental unity of the 

 organisation of living beings had been proved ; how was 

 their actual diversity to be explained ? This evidently 

 required considerations of a very different kind. What 

 they were we shall see in the next chapter. The posi- 

 tion of the morphologist in the middle of the century 

 had thus become one of considerable perplexity.^ It may 

 be compared to that of the organic chemist about the 

 same time. The older ideas, around which, under the 

 great influence of Cuvier and De Candolle in zoology 

 and botany, of Werner and Humboldt in geology, the 

 morphological classification and description of natural 

 objects had clustered on the Continent, had become 

 obsolete. The doctrine of definite types, of architec- 

 tonic models, or of distinct ages of creation, separated 

 by catastrophic changes, was becoming untenable ; floras 

 and faunas of entirely different appearance had been 

 revealed in other countries and climates in the distant 

 past,^ or in the great newly-discovered realm of living 



mental biology, and that of Yirchovv 

 at the origin of modern pathology, 

 as the greatest practical application 

 of the cellular theory. An exceed- 

 ingly good record of the diffei-ent 

 and changing views referring to 

 the cell will be found in the chapter 

 on " Cell and Protoplasm " in J. 

 A. Thomson's 'Science, of Life,' 

 pp. 101-117. 



1 " On comprend aisement le 

 d^couragement de Robin renon9ant 

 a ^difier son ' Traite d'Anatoniie 

 generale,' apres avoir teute inutile- 

 ment, dans sa 'Chimie anatomique,' 

 de p^netrer le mecanisme des 

 phenomenes moleculaires s'accom- 

 plissant dans les corps organises. 

 La morphologie, pourtant, n'avait 

 pas dit son dernier mot, et la 



barriere bio-chimique ctait nioins 

 rapprochee que le ne croyaient les 

 disciples de Comte et de De 

 Blainville " (Herrmann, article 

 "Cellule" in 'La Grande Ency- 

 clo})^die,' vol. is. p. 1060). 



■•* Owen, in the very instructive 

 " General Conclusions " to the third 

 volume of the ' Anatomy of Verte- 

 brates ' (1868), clearly points out 

 how the position of Cuvier has 

 been made untenable by these 

 discoveries : " As my observations 

 and comparisons accumulated, with 

 parijxtssu tests of observed phenom- 

 ena of osteogeny, they enforced a 

 reconsideration of Cuvier's con- 

 clusions to which I had previously 

 yielded assent" (p. 188). "Accord- 

 ingly, these results of extensive, 



