HOOKE 141 



Obs. 18. Cork is examined, and a thin section figured. 

 Hooke describes it as made up of " little boxes or cells," 

 whicb reminded him of a honeycomb. This is believed 

 to be the first mention of histological cells. The term 

 has since been thoughtlessly extended from the cavities 

 to the live particles which they contain. The epidermic 

 cells of the nettle-leaf (Obs. 25) are more typical of cells 

 in the extended sense of the word. Hooke does not 

 distinguish between cells and pores {e.g. of wood). He 

 looked in vain for passages leading from one cell to 

 another, or for valves. He could find no cells in seeds, 

 where Grew and Malpighi soon afterwards discovered 

 them in multitudes. Cork he supposed to be a kind 

 of fungus, sucking its nourishment from the bark of 

 the tree. 



Obs. 19. A leaf-fungus (Erisyphe) is engraved, the 

 sporocarps and stylo-gonidia being shown. Hooke 

 thinks that this fungus " may have its equivocal genera- 

 tion, as I have supposed moss or mould to have," and 

 explains its origin by putrefactive and fermentative heat. 

 Mistletoe, mushrooms and mosses may, he thinks, be 

 developed in the same way ; the putrefaction of slime 

 and juices may produce worms, the process being aided 

 by the seminal principles of animate bodies ; new species 

 might arise casually in this way. Hooke is in all this a 

 link between Aristotle and Bufibn. 



Obs. 20. One of the common moulds is figured. Its 

 mycelium is described as a " water-mushroom of a multi- 

 tude of little ramifications, like a thicket." Hooke is 

 prepared to trace a gradual passage from fluidity through 

 orbiculation, fixation, angulization, crystallization, ger- 

 mination or ebullition, vegetation, plantanimation, 

 animation, sensation, to imagination ! Did the scholastic 

 philosophy, which he condemns in his preface as a mere 



