Philosophy of Botany. 269 



The cause of tliis is principally attributable to the chemical 

 and physical properties of one smgle element, the carbon. 



Carbon is, from our point of view, of all elements by far the 

 most efficient and interesting, because the function of this ele- 

 ment plays the most important role in the life history of all 

 plants and animals of which we have any knowledge. It is 

 ihe element which, by virtue of its peculiar inclination to the 

 formation of complicated combinations with the other ele- 

 ments, efifects the greatest possible diversity of chemical com- 

 positions, and thereby also of the forms and qualities of the 

 bodies of animals and plants. In combining with the other 

 elements it forms an infinite series of formulas through diverse 

 proportions in number and weight. 



Foremost in the combination of carbon with these other ele- 

 ments oxygen, hydrogen, and nitrogen (with which also sul- 

 phur and phosphorus are frequently associated) arise those 

 extremely important compositions in which we recognize the 

 first and indispensable basis of vital phenomena, the albumi- 

 nates (proteids). 



Proteinic substances have as yet not been found otherwise 

 than in single or aggregate bodies of definite forms, which, 

 subject to ihe laws of organic evolution, differ, in an ascending 

 series, in complexity of molecular structure, mass and shape of 

 external form, and degree of development of organs for veg- 

 etative and physical functions. 



Within the recollection of our older botanists or biologists 

 it was firmly believed that the cell was the ultimate autogonic 

 element of bodies, and that the cells took their origin directly 

 from inorganic matter, under the influence of light and heat. 

 Virchow and Schleiden were the first to make clear the errone- 

 ousness of this presumption, showing that no cell originates 

 spontaneously, but directly out of another cell. " Omnis cel- 

 lula ex cellula " became the biological maxim. 



With the rapid advance in biologic studies and the greatly 

 improved methods in microscopy it was recognized that the 

 cell is a too complicated, too highly organized, and too mutable 

 formation for us^ to accredit it with the power to bridge over 

 at once the chasm between the organic and the inorganic. 



To remedy the discrepancy, the attention was drawn to the 



