MONERA 



highly complex organization to the cell in general. One 

 would be justified in saying that of late the cell-theory 

 has established itself in the dangerous and misleading 

 position of a cell-dogma. 



The modem treatment of the science, as we find it in 

 numbers of recent works, even in some of the most dis- 

 tinguished manuals, and which we must resent on ac- 

 count of its dogmatism, culminates in something like the 

 following thcises: 



1. The nucleated cell is the general elementary or- 

 ganism; all living things are either unicellular, or made 

 up of a number of cells and tissues. 



2. This elementary organism consists of at least two 

 different organs (or, more correctly, organella), the in- 

 ternal nucleus and the outer cell-body (or cytoplasm). 



3. The matter in each of these cell-organs — the caryo- 

 plasm of the nucleus and the cytoplasm of the body — is 

 never homogeneous (or consisting of a chemical substra- 

 tum), but always "organized," or made up of several 

 chemically and anatomically different elementary con- 

 stituents. 



4. The plasm (or protoplasm) is, therefore, a morpho- 

 logical, not a chemical, unity. 



5. Every cell comes (and has come) only from a 

 mother-cell, and every nucleus from a mother-nucleus 

 {omnis cellula e cellula — omnis nucleus e nucleo) . 



These five theses of the modern cell-dogma are by no 

 means sound ; they are incompatible with the theory of 

 evolution. I have, therefore, consistently resisted them 

 for thirty-eight years, and consider them to be so dan- 

 gerous that I will briefly give my reasons. First, let 

 us clearly understand the modern definition of the cell. 

 It is now generally defined (in accordance with the 

 second thesis) as being composed of two essentially 

 different parts, the nucleus and the cell-body, and it is 

 added that these organella differ constantly both in 



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