ON THE INVESTIGATION OF THE ELEMENTARY PART. 69 



vesicles or cells ; this primitive structure is called 

 cellular, and each cell is said to be nucleated." 



Now it would not be easy to find a paragraph in 

 a work having any pretensions to accuracy which 

 conveyed more incorrect information in the same 

 number of words. Actual observation proves that 

 there is a time when the body has no structure 

 whatever, when there is no matrix, when there are no 

 particles of a different optical aspect, when there are 

 no nuclei. The matrix never " breaks up " into 

 spheroidal masses, though it may be broken up. 

 The material round the nucleus is not applied to it as 

 an investing mass, for the latter exists before the 

 former, and the nucleus arises in the so-called invest- 

 ing mass. Mr. Huxley has been very severe on text- 

 books, but I doubt if he could point out anything in 

 the way of description more thoroughly at variance 

 with facts than his own description of tissue forma- 

 tion which I have quoted. He is surely laughing at 

 us when he tells us that cell wall and intercellular 

 substance become " variously modified," both chemi- 

 cally and structurally, and " give rise " to the pecu- 

 liarities of the different completely formed tissues ! 

 Is this an ingenious device for trying to make the 

 reader fancy that some highly complex phenomenon is 

 being philosophically explained to him by some novel 

 method of circumlocution? The student will how- 

 ever find that the only information he gains concern- 

 ing the formation of tissue is, that cell wall and in- 

 tercellular substance become " variously modified !" 



1O4. Investigation of the nature of the elementary 

 part. If the student desires to investigate the changes 

 which occur during the formation of tissue, he will 

 find it desirable to discard entirely all the complex 

 phraseology and arbitrary definitions which have so 

 long retarded, and still retard, progress in this 

 department of knowledge. He will find the phe- 

 nomena far more easy to understand than he would 



