CELL THEORIES. 131 
cesses of cells is not by outgrowth of processes, 
but by the separation of corpuscles which gradu- 
ally part, is most important ; though there is grave 
reason to pause before denying with him that con- 
tinuity of structure is ever the result of separate 
elements sending out processes which unite. 
But, however much it may be desired to give Dr. 
Beale full credit for the advances which he has 
made, it is easy enough to understand why that 
credit should be sometimes withheld, when one 
considers how these advances have been mixed up 
with a theory of “germinal and formed matter” 
which has made but little way. It is quite im- 
possible to support the doctrine that all “ formed 
matter” was once “germinal,” particularly if such 
things as the matrix of cartilage and the fibres 
of tendon are to be included under the term, as 
they are by Dr. Beale. Certain cell-walls, as those 
of at least some of the fat-cells, are really altered 
protoplasm ; but there is not the slightest reason 
to believe that the matrix of cartilage or the fibres 
of tendon are transformed portions of the vital 
corpuscles, or that they are undeserving of the 
name of “intercellular” substance. Rather would 
it have been well if Dr. Beale had looked on the 
cell-wall itself as intercellular. 
His difficulty appears to be that “no well- 
